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Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part seven)
part one part two part three part four part five part six
When I preach the gospel to someone, I explain (1) that he is sinner; he’s not a good person, (2) that he deserves a penalty for sin: death (physical, spiritual, and eternal death), (3) that Jesus died for him, and then (4) that he must believe in Jesus Christ. Where I left off on number four, part of what it means to believe in Jesus Christ is to repent. How do I explain that?
Jesus, Not Me
You cannot believe in Jesus Christ and in yourself both. Sin is against the glory of God (Romans 3:23), so against God Himself, like David confessed in Psalm 51:4, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” Sin is my will, not His will be done. The root of sin is self over God and wanting what you want instead of what God wants. This relates to the first and the tenth commandments of the ten commandments.
Breaking the first commandment puts another god before God and violating the tenth means coveting. Paul in Colossians 3:5 says covetousness is idolatry. Disobeying the tenth commandment is also disobeying the first.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He is the way. To take His way, you’ve got to leave your own. This is to deny self and follow Him, which is repentance. Repentance, life faith, is not a work. Acts 11:18 says, “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” God grants repentance, just like He grants faith (2 Peter 1:1, Philip 1:29). “No man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor 12:3).
No Longer in Rebellion Against Him
No one believes in Jesus Christ and remains in rebellion against Him. He turns from his way to God’s way, from self to God, and from his sin to Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, to turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Rather than worshiping the creature, his self, He worships the Creator (Rom 1:25). The Father is seeking such to worship Him (John 4:23).
In Luke 13:3, 5, both verses, Jesus commands, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” In John 3:16, Jesus says, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you won’t perish, and in Luke 13:3, 5, he says, if you won’t repent, you will perish.” Faith and repentance are two sides to the same coin. To turn to Jesus Christ, which you do when you believe in Him, you must turn from something — your will, you way, and your sin. Paul represents the two in Acts 20:21 in his preaching:
Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Repent and Believe
A couple of other places put the two together:
Mark 1:15: “And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
Matthew 21:32: “For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.”
Repentance is that moment when someone relinquishes control of his life. This is seen in the sequence that Jesus preaches at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Someone recognizes his own spiritual poverty, he mourns over his sin, and then he is meek, that is, he gives God the charge of his life. The word translated “meek” was used of the horse that was broken. He now becomes useable. This is your life, God, take and use it. This is believing in Jesus Christ.
More Than Intellect, Also the Will
Faith that saves is more than just intellectual assent to facts. It involves the will. God knows when you have relinquished your self, your way, your life to Him. Many will say, Lord, Lord, Jesus says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. He will say, Depart from me, I never knew you. It is he who does the will of the Father who is in heaven. Someone who keeps going the same direction has kept his life for himself and will lose life as a result.
More to Come
The United States and the War in Ukraine (Part One)
A Similar Series I Wrote in 2023
Like the rest of the world, I hope for the gospel to spread to and in both Russia and the Ukraine. Jesus will some day reign over the whole earth and bring true peace. In the meantime, nations must operate together in a sin-cursed world and James 4:1-2 regularly comes true:
From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
War is the reality of this age, yet something nations should attempt to avoid, not at all costs though. What about the war between Russia and Ukraine? Some call it a proxy war between Russia and the United States. Europe, right on the doorstep of Ukraine, does not pay for the war despite its close proximity. Neither does it send any of its own men to die with the Ukrainians in their fight against Russia.
It’s easy to sympathize with evangelical believers in Ukraine. Men spread the gospel, make disciples, train leaders, and churches start in that country. Many, I’m sure, are sadly dying in this war. Whatever good thoughts and genuine prayers for the believers of Ukraine, this is not the basis for making a decision on what’s right for the United States to do in this situation. Thousands of Christians inhabited the Roman Empire when it fell.
Before I launch into my opinion on the conflict, I will sketch out some history for us to consider.
History
Pre World War 2
Historians agree that Russia started by at least the 10th century. Kyiv, now Ukraine, was a vital part of the earliest iteration of Russia between 882 and 1240, when the Mongols invaded. Ivan the Terrible later became the first Tsar of Russia in 1547. Peter the Great declared the Russian Empire in 1721 at which time Kyiv became a part. Kyiv remained in Russia until the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 during World War I (see map of Europe in 1910). Ukraine briefly became independent, embracing Communism.
Ukraine was a founding republic of the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922. Its borders were adjusted several times during the Soviet period based on administrative decisions made in Moscow. Following World War 2, various international treaties changed Ukraine’s borders further (with little to no world protest) as it gained territories such as Western Ukraine from Poland and parts from Romania and Czechoslovakia due to shifting post-war boundaries.
Post World War 2
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had earlier granted the Soviet Union diplomatic recognition in 1933. Later at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 toward the end of World War 2, he, Churchill, and Stalin discussed post-war arrangements for Europe. They drew lines of occupation controlled by each Allied power. This agreement inherently acknowledged that much of Eastern Europe would fall under Soviet influence, and then it did.
Roosevelt wanted to maintain a cooperative relationship with Stalin to ensure Soviet participation in the war against Japan and then post-war peace efforts. This is a reason he opted for the Soviets to capture Berlin first, thinking that would strengthen the U.S. position in negotiations over post-war Europe. FDR, a Democrat, the socialist leaning, liberal political party of the United States jettisoned regions like Ukraine to Stalin.
Post Cold War and NATO Expansion
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, NATO expanded several times to include former Eastern Bloc countries and Baltic states, which Russia perceived and still perceives as a breach of trust based on early assurances from the United States that this would not occur. At a handshake level, American diplomats, such as James Baker, assured Russia against NATO expansion past Eastern Germany. Russia believes the West violated an implicit agreement that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe to which Putin often refers as justification for his actions.
Many compare the threat of NATO expansion to the Russia border and Ukraine to the Soviets placing nuclear missiles in Cuba. The United States would not allow it.
Motivation
A common refrain in discussions of Russia and Ukraine is an expression of democracy. The United States must support democracy across the world. One could call this a doctrine of foreign policy. The present administration at least questions this doctrine and its consistency in Europe. Europe claims democracy, but it looks like “selective democracy,” which isn’t democracy at all. J.D. Vance in a speech in Munich brought out the selectiveness of European freedom, especially targeting religious freedom and freedom of speech. I haven’t heard really any answer on this from Europe.
Thousands are dying in Ukraine and will keep dying. Ukraine will not win the war. I’m not saying Russia did well in this war, but they committed to it, have more people, and enough money to keep making weapons. Could Ukraine win? No. Not just Europe, but the U. S. military would need to join in the fight. Europe does not show a true commitment to Ukraine. It pretends commitment with no endgame. At most Ukraine could inflict more damage on Russia, a very risky proposition, because Russia has nuclear weapons and a growing incentive to use them.
European Support
After the Zelensky live-televised oval office meeting with the President and others, Zelensky travelled to Europe to receive immediate support from European leaders. What does this mean? Europe has no serious proposal. It barely supported Ukraine. It dedicates an infinitesimal percentage of its budget to its own defense. Europe didn’t send troops to fight with Ukraine. Nations like the United Kingdom don’t protect their own borders, let alone Ukraine. They have emaciated, weak militaries that alone might serve as a speed bump for Russia.
From my perspective, by supporting Zelensky in public, albeit pretend support, Europe disrespected the present government of the United States, which represents the American people according to a democratic vote. Europe wants American support without giving America respect. European leaders like Starmer and Macron, and then the Canadian Trudeau, undermine a possible peace between Russia and Ukraine to stop this war. They do this without any realistic alternative.
I don’t know of one poll that asks whether the citizens of these European countries want to send troops to join Ukraine to die in its fight against Russia. Why isn’t that question being asked? It’s obvious. Everyone knows that not one nation wants a part of that. The support for Ukraine is a pretend support, essentially a lie. European support for Ukraine means less than nothing. The left and neo-cons in the United States and its media join them in this mass deception.
More to Come
People Saying They Love Who Don’t Love
Good to Say, I Love You
It’s good to say, “I love you.” Maybe we can practice it together. “I love you guys.” “Love you.”
Apostle Paul
Scripture does this. Usually the Apostle Paul will include a clear expression of love among the words of the text of one of his epistles. In Romans 12:19, he begins an address to the church at Rome with the words, “Dearly beloved.” He directs words toward individuals, such as little known “Amplias,” saying in Romans 16:8, “Greet Amplias my beloved in the Lord.” In 1 Corinthians 4:14, he writes:
I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.
“My beloved sons.” Then he calls Timothy his “beloved son” in 4:17. In 1 Corinthians 10:14, he writes: “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.” He calls the same people of the church at Corinth, “my beloved brethren,” in 15:58.
John
In 2 John 1:1, John writes:
The elder unto the elect lady and her children,, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth.
He loves this elect lady and her children in the truth. Jesus said to His disciples the amazing statement of John 16:27 at the end of the Upper Room Discourse:
For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself looked for Peter to tell Him his love for Him in that classic passage in John 21: “Lovest thou me?” The Bible records expressions of love and it is good to say it. Leadership of churches and the people of true churches should communicate their love for each other.
A few times a year, I walk through the card section of a store, looking for a card. Many will say something about love in them toward the recipient. You know what I’m telling you is true. Love is all over greeting cards, a communication of the word “love” at least. Scripture encourages to say these things, but in the nature of what? It’s definitely more than just saying something.
Strong Statements That Are Love
When Paul called people “beloved son” or “dearly beloved,” it usually comes with some strong statement of rebuke or a harsh command. He was saying something like, “Don’t think this means I don’t love you, because I do.” He said the thing he did, that was hard, because he loved. The plain implication is that people think you do not love them when you say something true and tough to them, let alone just true.
Jesus said in John 14:23-24:
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
Why would Jesus even need to say this? Well, because a lot of people say they love Jesus, but they really don’t. It’s those who keep His Words. It’s the same in 1 John 4:10: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.” That’s pretty strong too. You say you love God, but you’re a liar.
This is where Jesus was at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:20-23) and He said that man would say, Lord, Lord, and He will say, Depart from me, I never knew you. I never knew you. Just saying, Lord, Lord, isn’t good enough.
Included Commitment
Some people just won’t say, “I love you.” I don’t like that. It’s not something to which I commit. To me, you let people know you love them. It’s a commitment. But scripture itself is not big on just saying it.
I know and you know that people will say they love you, because very often, words are cheap. We can say, like Peter, Lord, you know that i love you, but Peter wasn’t committed. People will say, I love you, but they don’t forgive. They won’t express it and won’t do it.
They also want people to know how much they love, but while saying they love, they betray. They don’t give or even offer what’s right. Saying, I love you, is sometimes just a way to get things that you want. “I said, I love you, where are my goodies?”
Not Sentimentalism or Empathy
Several books are written on a similar theme to what I’m writing here. Love isn’t sentimentalism (part one, part two). “I love you” are not magic words to ward away the evil spirits, like they are magical words. These books are about what Joe Rigney calls, the sin of empathy.
Saying, I love you, is both hard and easy. It is hard because it means commitment. But it is easy, because those words don’t require any commitment. The commitment is the actual love. The words don’t mean anything and even mean less than anything when the commitment doesn’t come with them.
Love is of God. For something to be love, it must include God. God must be God, not an imaginary deity without the same attributes as the one and only true God.
The Nature of the Church
As I’ve reminded you in the past, I’ve got several series going, which include the following:
The Moral Nature of God (part one, part two, part three, part four)
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six)
Biblical Equality and the Societally Destructive Lie of Egalitarianism (part one, part two)
Answering the “Cultish” Wes Huff Podcast on King James Only (part one, part two)
Profaning the Name of the Lord: How Can or Do People Do It? (part one)
I also have some other things in the works, mostly in the idea stage. Maybe I’ll get to them soon. Here are two of those:
A List of Five Great Scriptural Arguments for Premillennialism (Maybe the Best)
The Greatest Causes Undermining the Faith of the Church
*************************************************
The church is local only. It is not universal or mystical. I could end right there.
Childhood Understanding of Church
I don’t remember hearing about the nature of the church as I grew up in, well, church. It was not a controversy, what the church was. My dad was a factory worker and my parents started into church a couple of years before I was born. I was very into church. If you asked me what a church was, I could have given an easy, basic answer, I believe. I was a blank slate in my own desert island and completely sincere.
As a child, I knew the church was not a building. Not. The little, inside the church are all of the people, I knew was wrong. No, the people were the church. But were they? Nothing was so complicated to say that those people were a visible manifestation of the truth church, universal and invisible. That never occurred to me. If you read your Bible, or read it and just hear it taught week after week, you wouldn’t get a universal church. Somebody had to tell you that. You wouldn’t get it from just reading your Bible. It’s not in there.
Not Universal and Invisible
As few people as really understand the concept of a universal and invisible church, it has an amazing number of adverse effects on many. People barely to never question those effects. If you believe the church is only local, those effects shouldn’t exist. This is how that even people, who grew up never grasping a universal, invisible church concept, will accept things that proceeded from that thing they rarely to never consider.
Christ started only one church. It was not a dual natured church. It never reads even close to that complicated. From a plain reading, no one would get something other than local. Of the twenty-plus times Jesus uses the term “church,” all but one are plainly local. One could not get a universal church out of that one example. The twenty plain usages by Jesus should influence the interpretation of the one less plain. Some usages don’t clearly show the meaning of a word. It does with the word church in about a hundred of its one hundred eighteen uses.
Ekklesia
“Church” is an English word, which comes from a Greek one — ekklesia. Ekklesia means “assembly.” If someone would just consider the actual meaning of the word in the original languages, the few ambiguous usages in the English New Testament would become crystal clear.
An assembly is by nature local and visible. If you can’t see the assembly, then it isn’t assembled. An assembly also by nature must occur in one place, that is at least local.
Once someone knows what a church is, he can then get the right interpretation and application of the passages in the New Testament that use the word. In the utmost way, he will know the meaning of unity in a church. So many do not understand church unity, because a teacher messed up their understanding of the nature of the church. Also, an actual church can obey the passages on separation. For a church to practice true unity, it must also practice true separation.
Effects
Many bad effects come from perverting the nature of the church. The gospel is important. I would contend that the corruption or destruction of the gospel arose mainly from misconstruing the nature of the church.
People will find out in the end the highly detrimental effects on their lives and even their eternities, because they reject the true nature of church. We need a return of true teaching on and practice of the church.
Answering the “Cultish” Wes Huff Podcast on King James Only (Part Two)
Loving the KJV?
About middle of first episode, Wes Huff says he loves the King James Version, even though he also says in the same paragraph that he doesn’t recommend the King James Version of the Bible. Those like Wes love almost every English translation of the Bible for some reason or another, even though they differ in their underlying text two to seven percent. He thinks the KJV is wrong on a number of passages — longer ending of Mark, woman caught in adultery, and the inclusion of 1 John 5:7. But that’s okay, because no one is completely sure anyway.
Certainty is what makes the “KJVO cult.” To not be a cult requires something more in line with confidence, which is not perfection. Even though I think Huff would support verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture, he doesn’t think we know with certainty what those words are. The underlying text of the King James Version, based on naturalistic presuppositions, is too long.
Tradition? Liking a Clean Narrative and Stability?
Huff then says, “There’s something about humans that like tradition.” He’s saying that support of the King James is because of tradition. I don’t know anyone who says that. He gives no evidence that this is the reasoning behind a continued use of the King James Version. Huff is flat-out wrong on this. Maybe tradition in the Church of England results in the continued usage of the King James Version in certain Anglican congregations, but this isn’t true of the confessional bibliology, ecclesiastical text, or perfect preservationist crowd.
Furthermore, Huff says, people “like a clean narrative” and “stability.” That’s it. He just knows what people really think that they don’t say that they think. They do anyways, because Huff knows better. But this isn’t true. They have scriptural and historical presuppositions. The verses that teach the perfect preservation of scripture guide the expectations about the Bible just like many other doctrines. This is living by faith and not by sight.
Dumbing Down “Perfect”
One of the hosts asks Wes Huff, “If your Bible is not perfect, then how can it be the Word of God?” Huff starts his answer with the words, “I think it begs the question by what we mean by perfect.” Then he says, “I don’t know if I would use the word perfect, because the word perfect implies flawless.” Huff explains that for most of recorded history, you couldn’t do a photocopy of something. You had to write things down and sometimes mistakes were made, Huff says — even with the printing press, giving the example of the infamous “Wicked Bible.”
Question: “Is the Bible a supernatural book?” Could God keep every Word perfect? Did He say He would? Then that’s what we believe — what God said He would do.
Scribal Errors and Debunking God’s Promise of Perfect Preservation
Huff says, “We can’t just brush over the way God has preserved His Word.” He introduces that statement with the reality of scribal errors found in the massive manuscript evidence. He says, “God included humanity into the process.” Huff is true in that men copied scripture and made errors in copying. What he doesn’t mention are these underlying scriptural presuppositions of providential, divine preservation and a settled text. Men have faith in the inspiration of the original manuscripts and they also must have faith in the perfect preservation of the Words of God, based on His promises.
When Huff says we can’t brush away the way God preserved His Word, he’s saying that God didn’t preserve every Word, which itself isn’t preservation. It is unbelief. The prevailing scholarly view is that words were lost. They don’t want to say that, that they are still attempting to restore a lost text, but that is their view. This is their so-called non-cultish view. God said He would keep them, they would be available, but they weren’t, and this is reality.
Hebrews 10:7
The primary host of Cultish asks Huff about an argument from Gene Kim, an online Bible teacher and pastor in Berkeley, California, where he refers to Hebrews 10:7:
Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
Kim says that God has more than just manuscripts, but a Book. I believe Kim makes a good argument in the line of a settled text of scripture. You can’t just slough it off, like Huff does. God says, “the book” here in Hebrews, a quotation too from Psalm 40:7. Believers would expect “the book,” one book, not just fragments and copies of mere individual books. “The book of Moses” isn’t just one book, but five books. Yet, it is “the book.”
The historical interpretation of “the book” in Hebrews 10:7 is not an anachronism, what Huff calls it. I know someone who hand copied the entire Bible (many have done this) and it is still “the book” as a manuscript, a manual copy, not a printed edition, of the Bible.
The Job of an Apologist
Exegesis
Huff and these men on Cultish are apparently apologists. What’s the point or purpose of apologists or apology? It is defense of what? Shouldn’t they defend what scripture says rather than defend a particular dogma that proceeds from a naturalistic presupposition, conforming scripture to a preconception? Instead, they undermine faith in a perfect Bible, because of the existence of textual variants. Where does denying verses of the Bible stop in the presence of “external evidence” that apparently disagrees with the teaching in the verses?
The historical, biblical interpretation of “the book” in Hebrews 10:7 is the present written scriptures as of the writing of Hebrews 10:7, which is the entire Old Testament, a singular book. “The volume of the book” is “the scroll of the book” both in Psalm 40:7 and Hebrews 10:7. A scroll speaks of a hand copy, that is still a book. This is simple exegesis that Huff will not engage. He ignores the biblical argument and instead shoots from the hip about the anachronism of “the book” as it relates to manuscripts, essentially creating a smoke cloud of obfuscation.
The Expectation of the Book
Huff says that these books, speaking of individual books of the Bible, “floated around independently.” According to scripture, these books were not “floating around.” We know that copies of individual books were sent and shared (Colossians 4:16).
The second host of Cultish then made a point that “the book” in Hebrews 10:7 is not the King James Version. Genius. Who says that? The Father said to the Son, “In the scroll of the King James Version it is written of me.” The point of Kim, I’m sure, is that saints should have an expectation of “the Book,” speaking of all the individual books into one book. What is controversial about that? He is saying that digging up all these fragments and portions of hand copies should not overturn the book God preserved and said He preserved.
“It Is Written”
Furthermore, a point I didn’t hear. Maybe Kim made it in his presentation. “It is written” is perfect indicative passive, meaning that it remains written in the writing of Hebrews. When was the volume written? Settled in heaven with the Father and the Son and continuing until the writing of Hebrews. This is teaching preservation of scripture. These apologists can’t dig into that, because it contradicts their naturalistic presuppositions, ignoring the doctrine of preservation.
I don’t know if Gene Kim thinks that “the book” is the King James Version or its underlying text (apparently, Kim is a Ruckmanite, which we oppose here vociferously). Either way, his point remains, that is, everything written in the book remains in the book. That is the underlying text from which the translation comes. That means the translation is “the Book.” Something is the Book. Kim is saying it is something. I am saying it is something. They are saying, it isn’t quite something. Maybe it is what is written. Probably not, because that’s “reality” as Huff says, which is his epistemology.
More to Come
Answering the “Cultish” Wes Huff Podcast on King James Only (Part One)
Cultish from Apologia Studios
Shortly after Wes Huff appeared on Joe Rogan, he came on a podcast, which affiliates with Apologia Studios, called “Cultish.” The men who do this show are also trying to become viewer or listener funded. In other words, they think they should go full time doing what they do. Their show came on my radar because of Wes Huff’s interview by Joe Rogan. The number of hits on this episode showed the Joe Rogan effect two times removed, 58,000 plus having watched this “Cultish” episode.
Just listening to the interview with Huff to answer King James Only, I would tell them, Don’t quit your day jobs. No one should fund this and for many reasons. It’s a hot mess. So why answer it? I’m doing it because it offers an evaluation of what kind of gibberish and absolute gobbledygook addresses King James Only. It reminds me of the typical left-winged rubbish, such as the woman at CBS who said free speech caused the holocaust. It is on that level, so ignorant, it’s hard to fathom. I find myself just wagging my head.
Straw-manning Versus Steel-manning
Maybe you’ve heard the difference between steel-manning and straw-manning a position. Wikipedia gives a definition to steel-manning (in case you don’t know):
A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person’s argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented.
These men, including Wes Huff, only straw-man the position. If someone were examining something to see if it is a cult (you know, out of concern for the cult member), he would want to give an accurate representation. They do not do that. This is in the nature of bias confirmation and speaking into the echo chamber.
Just to start, why does KJVO appear as a cult? That’s never explained. The subject matter doesn’t belong on a show about cults, but it’s low hanging fruit for the heavily tattooed Apologia crowd and its cohorts. If someone will call KJVO a cult, someone could easily call something an Alexandrian or Vatican text cult, and have similar grounds for it. If KJVO is a cult, how does calling it a cult help deliver someone, who embraces the King James Version as the Bible, from the cult to which he belongs?
The Vulgate Argument
The content of the podcast of part one begins actually around the six minute mark. The Cultish host asks Huff a question about bridging a gap between the Council of Nicea and 1611 and the King James Version, there seeming to be a crying need for a translation from the original languages in 1611. It’s not a bad question. Huff answers the question by saying that the contemporary view of Jerome’s Vulgate is similar to the KJVO view of the King James Version. He says the arguments for the Vulgate and the King James are about the same.
The Vulgate argument did not originate from Huff. It’s been around for at least fifty years, and it is a strawman. As the critical text became more and more accepted in evangelicalism, men began developing arguments against the prevailing view and King James Version support. Huff says the argument is that the Vulgate had been the Bible for a thousand years (404 to 1604) and the King James for five hundred years (1611 to 2025). Actually, five hundred years would span the period of the printed editions of the Textus Receptus (1516-2025) from which the KJV New Testament came.
Truth about the Vulgate Argument
It would be nice to have a conversation about these things from two sides. The acceptance of Jerome came from an apostate state church, those who also believed a false gospel and heretical works salvation. The true internal testimony of the Holy Spirit is not involved in the acceptance of Jerome’s Vulgate, as also seen in the Roman Catholic embrace of extra-scriptural tradition, Papal pronouncements, the magisterium, and apocryphal books. They did not look for preservation of scripture in the original languages or in making the Bible available for Roman Catholics.
The Textus Receptus and Hebrew Masoretic was received by those truly saved by grace through faith alone. They were the texts received by the churches as authentic. The Vulgate didn’t come from an original Hebrew or Greek Text. Jerome worked from the Greek Septuagint and Latin Translations, not original language texts. Later Jerome looked at Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament for the sake of accuracy, but he still stuck with Old Latin translations for his New Testament work.
Jerome didn’t translate from the Greek New Testament and consider that “the Bible of the church” as Huff invents on the spot. He does this on many different occasions when I’ve heard him in different podcasts. He says this with a face of total confidence, but it is absolutely untrue. Huff says that the Roman Catholic objection of an original language text is the same as the one of KJVO, that is, the Latin has been the Bible for one thousand years.
Original Language Preservation
Historically, after the fall of the Roman Empire and throughout the Middle Ages, there were limited vernacular translations due to low literacy rates and strict control over biblical texts by the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authorities. They didn’t want translation work done from original language texts, but in keeping with the approved Latin Vulgate, which become increasingly less understood by the rank and file citizens of Europe.
The argument for the King James concerns the preservation and availability of the original words of scripture in their original languages. The churches agreed on these words for hundreds of years. These were Spirit indwelt men and churches operating therefore with the testimony of the Holy Spirit. This is the heritage of the King James Version, not a magisterium model of Roman Catholicism. When you read the bibliology writings of truly converted theologians for hundreds of years after the printing press, they embraced the infallibility of the apographa, the copies of scripture, identical to the originals by providential preservation.
Huff says the KJVO and the Jerome Vulgate were “almost the exact same argument.” This is just an ad hominem and strawman attack that is patently false. What Huff really thinks will come out in this podcast and I’ll point it out when we get there. It was only Roman Catholicism arguing for continued use of Jerome’s Vulgate, not true churches.
Further along, Huff says that the apostles quoted from the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This is itself a new and common argument from critical text supporters, advocating for a corrupt translation of the Old Testament as an authority. This makes way for support of a less than perfect text of the Bible, not the biblical or historical view of the church.
Earlier English Translations
From the Vulgate conversation, the other Cultish host asked Huff about the history of English translations of the Bible. He mentioned Wycliffe and then Tyndale, also saying that Tyndale died for translating the Bible into English. At his execution on October 6, 1536, Tyndale was accused of “Lutheran heresy” for including prologues and footnotes that criticized church doctrine and authority. The charges did not say Bible translation.
Huff fails to reveal that the earlier English translations also translated the Textus Receptus and the Hebrew Masoretic, so that the underlying text of the King James was received and reigned before 1611. He also does not mention that Henry VIII authorized the Great Bible and ordered the translators to compare with Tyndale’s work. The King James Version is very close to Tyndale. Huff later says that part. They obviously also relied on his work. Tyndale, even though not carrying the name Baptist, which no one used yet, was Baptistic, even as he took a believer’s baptism position, even against both Puritan and Anglican alike.
Editions of the Textus Receptus
The next argument against this “cult” of KJVO from Huff relates to the underlying text of the King James being a Texti Recepti, rather than one Textus Receptus. Again, this is a strawman. The editions of the Textus Receptus, although they differ in a very small number of ways, represent one text. Those who printed these editions didn’t see them as different texts. Every historian and scholar knows that. Those who like to point out the several editions are angling for the King James translators doing textual criticism, as another faux argument.
You really can’t say that the King James translators were looking at Hebrew and Greek texts from which to translate and then also say that no text existed for the King James until Scrivener’s in the late 19th century. These contradict one another and this brings us back to a absence of a needed steel-manning.
Huff called the editions of Stephanus and Beza “updates” of Erasmus. The editions are homogeneous because they are the same text with minor variations, explained as corrections of minor errors. This period of printed editions did not continue past the middle 17th century. The churches settled, this explained as the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit.
The text behind the King James Version was a settled edition from the printed edition period. Huff says the translators used the science and art of textual criticism, which is a revisionist spin on what they did. All of the words in Scrivener’s were available to the King James translators and the churches. They possessed the original language words translated in 1611. No one was saying, “We don’t have a Greek text.” No one. That’s a modern innovation from those whom Huff mimics with this argument.
Underlying Text and Preservation
Huff entraps himself at about 22:45 in the podcast, when he reads the title page of the Trinitarian Bible Society Greek New Testament, which says the underlying Greek text of the 1611 King James Bible. The key word there is “underlying.” It underlay the King James Version, not proceeded from it.
One of the hosts asks Huff at about 24 minutes what is the difference between the critical text and the Textus Receptus and Huff says the critical text is “a text that is produced.” Good answer. You’ve got a preserved text and then a produced text. The latter does not represent the biblical doctrine of preservation. It denies it. Huff never mentions it. The doctrine of preservation should be at the forefront, but it isn’t because they deny the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation of scripture. They see it as naturalistic, something humanly produced.
More to Come
Profaning the Name of the Lord: How Can or Do People Do It?
Right now I’ve got several series going, and here they are, I believe. By mentioning these series, I’m saying that I want to finish them, Lord-willing. Go back and read these again or read them for the first time.
The Moral Nature of God (part one, part two, part three, part four)
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six)
Biblical Equality and the Societally Destructive Lie of Egalitarianism (part one, part two)
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Non Specific Commands or Instruction about Not Profaning
The New Testament alone has about one thousand commands in it. About eighty percent of these, I would call “non-specific.” In the past, I’ve written that God requires specific application of these non-specific commands. When scripture is non-specific as such, it implies that the reader knows what God says. This realm of scripture is self-evident. God assumes that the reader of scripture knows what He means, and in His omniscience, God knows what people know and what they don’t know. He will judge them for their belief and practice of this scripture.
Perhaps you have watched a 1 1/2 to 2 year old child, who is not yet able to communicate well in a known language. However, the child knows what his parents, his siblings, and other adults are saying to him. Even if he can’t speak the language, he understands it. Therefore, the child is responsible for keeping what he knows. In a similar way, God knows that we know the meaning and the application of these non-specifics.
An example of a non-specific through scripture starting with the Old Testament, is the direction by God not to profane Himself (Ezekiel 22:26), His name (Leviticus 18:21, 19:12, 20:3, 21:6; Amos 2:7, Malachi 1:12), His sanctuary (Leviticus 21:12, 23; Ezekiel 23:39, 24:21), the holiness of the Lord (Malachi 2:11), the holy things (Leviticus 22:15), the temple (Acts 24:5), and people’s own selves (Ezekiel 28:16; Jeremiah 23:11; Hebrews 12:16). God commands to be holy, which is also non-specific, but in a negative fashion, He also commands not to profane.
Understanding Profanity
On another occasion, I thoroughly explained the concept, idea, or teaching of “profane.” I wrote a series, “Judging Music: Blurring the Distinction Between the Sacred and the Profane” (part one, part two), in which I showed how profanity occurs with music. Of course, someone does the profane and not the holy when he sins, either doing what he shouldn’t do or not doing what he should do. Even with sinning, someone must again apply non-specific commands to obey them.
Many of you reading have walked into a hotel or a hotel room and received a first impression. You can see something superior versus average. Maybe the average doesn’t violate a code, but it doesn’t pop like the look of wonderful and amazing. When someone does work for you, you also know the difference between the two. You know the difference between a good caulking job, average, and poor. Probably many of you wouldn’t even accept average, let alone poor, and you know the distinctions.
Do you remember the story of Belshazzar’s Feast in Daniel 5? This is the narrative of “the writing on the wall,” which has become a common expression. Belshazzar, a pagan king, holds a great feast and serves the drinks in the vessels looted from the Solomonic Temple. These were sacred to God, which meant no common or profane use of them, only something sacred. Anyone who did so blasphemed God. Upon this occasion, Belshazzar lost the kingdom and with direct relationship to this profanity.
Vulgarity
The Bible does not show how not to profane something, whether the very serious profaning of God Himself and His name or the profaning of a believer. Scripture implies that we know. Even if someone says, “Nothing is sacred anymore,” something is still sacred even when everyone turns everything into the profane or the common.
Related to common and profane as English words is the word “vulgar.” Vulgar is not always wrong. The idea behind Jerome’s Vulgate, whether it succeeded or not, was to get the original languages into the common language of the Roman Empire. “Vulgate” means common or colloquial speech. However, very often when someone says, “That was vulgar,” he means “profane.” Being vulgar was bad.
Some Things Are Still Sacred Anymore
Just because the world and even those who profess Christianity diminish what is sacred to the profane or common, does not mean that nothing is sacred or everything is profane. The sacred or holy is still sacred or holy to God and God knows when people profane or make common or vulgar what is holy to Him. Usually much other sinning will accompany such an approach or attitude that either profanes what is holy, accommodates it, or allows it.
Based on my knowledge according to a now large sample size, it is my opinion that a very small minority of churches work on keeping the non-specific commands of not profaning God and His things. I also believe that those who do not keep these commands are in fact blaspheming God parallel to Belshazzar above. They might expect the handwriting on the wall, which is not a good thing for them.
More to Come
The Moral Nature of God (Part 4)
God’s Goodness
Imagine a deer running through the woods at the very time a dead tree falls, trapping the deer helplessly alone. The deer starves to death in solitary confusion. An agnostic might ask and say, “If there is an all powerful, good God, why or how would He allow this to happen? This is immoral.”
In and with His sovereignty, God created and sustains heavens and earth. Everything was perfect and then man sinned against God. God allowed Adam and Eve to sin. Sin is wrong, but allowing them to sin is not. God does not sin and He does not tempt anyone to sin James writes (1:13):
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.
James says many other things in chapter one of his epistle that indicate the moral nature of God, that with God is only good. On the other hand, sin ruined men and all men sin. Paul writes in Romans 3:12 that there is no man that does good. Goodness does not characterize man, even as Jesus says in Matthew 19:17: “There is none good, but one, that is God.”
The Nature of the Fall of Man
An agnostic, again elevating himself above God, might question the Fall of man through sin. What did he do? He ate of a tree. It was worse than that. He disobeyed God, rebelled against Him, and put his self and even Satan above God.
God, the Lawgiver and Judge, commanded man not to eat of that tree. God would not have man to know evil. Later in Genesis 3:22, the Father speaking to the other two members of the Godhead, said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” The agnostic again attacks the moral nature of God, as if God selfishly did not want man to become like Him. That’s not what God is saying in Genesis 3:22.
Adam and Eve are God’s creation. With His knowledge of good and evil, God has no ability to sin. Adam and Eve did. They became as God, but this does not mean they became identical to God. No. They knew evil internally and experientially. God is holy and separate from sin. He knows evil, but on the outside, not in a personal experience. The only future plan for eternal life must include redemption from sin and that would not occur with and to everyone.
The Morality of the Curse on Earth
The Single Eye of God
God does not see the heavens and the earth through a dark or evil lens, such as men do. The eye of God is single and He allows only light through it (Luke 11:34-36). The eye of man is by nature evil and so also is full of darkness. This incapacity and ruination disallow man from the same moral judgment as God. With God is no variableness nor shadow of turning (James 1:17). God sees everything in an untainted, single eyed, enlightened manner. He sees everything past, present, and future and with complete moral clarity, unfettered by sin.
As right and good punishment for sin, God cursed the earth that He created. It would no longer be the same until a later date when God would reverse all of this through Jesus Christ. This curse includes the animals.
Cursed Ground and Its Consequences
When God cursed the ground in Genesis 3:17-19, animals received and continue receiving the effects of that. Animals experience the consequences of the Fall, the fact that God has cursed the ground. All animals as a result of the Fall will decay. They get diseases, age, and die in many various fashions. The whole animal kingdom changed. In an uncursed state, Isaiah 11:6 reports:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
Furthermore, Isaiah 65:25 says:
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.
Natural predators no longer predatory, the lion or the wolf not killing lambs any more. This new condition characterizes the earth with the curse lifted.
Creation Groaning
Romans 8:20-22 say that God’s creation groans under the impact of sin. An agnostic might say, “That’s not fair to the animals.” This is a moral judgment from a fallen creature on a holy God, who knows all things with perfect clarity or light, not impeded by darkness. God expresses the conditions for the animals in Jeremiah 12:4:
How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He, shall not see our last end.
John Gill comments: “Wickedness is the cause not only of the withering of the grass and herbs, but of the consumption of birds and beasts.” In this moral realm where God is Lawgiver and Judge, animals along with the rest of God’s creation suffer under the results of the entrance of sin. The purpose of God is pure in His inclusion of effects on everything. His grace still works in a manner that it is not as bad as it could be. This is the mercy of God. However, God is just in His dealings and judging God is not the right moral reaction to Him.
The Morality of God
The morality of God is morality. His assessment is the right assessment. His judgment is just.
Another aspect of the judgment of God is that He knows all possible outcomes. He can even answer the question, “What’s the alternative?” He knows every alternative. The one God chooses in fitting with His nature.
God is pure good with zero variableness. He gives every good and perfect gift. Humans enter and interact with whatever earthly scene with very limited perspective and context. One could ask, “What is the greatest good in every situation?” People don’t know that. God knows what will benefit the most people and He judges evil in an untainted manner related to its past, present, and future. Whatever He allows or causes is the greatest good for the most people.
In a sin-cursed world, no one deserves life according to the morality of God, but even with that outcome of sin, God allows or causes the greatest possible good for the most people. He also knows when no one or even just a few in a particular culture will turn from their wicked ways and He spares those who deserve sparing in this lifetime. God spared Rahab in Jericho, indicating this truth.
Deserved Outcomes
A cycle of life and death resulted from the Fall of sin that impacts all of creation. Everyone and everything suffers because sin is very bad. Sin is deserving of the outcome it receives, even as God governs morality.
A future new heaven and new earth will starkly contrast with this present age of doom and destruction. Why? Sin is gone, so the results of sin are gone.
The same agnostics most often justify immorality in a multitude of ways. They expect God to wink at sin and then continue winking at it. This manifests their immoral nature. They have a different set of expectations than God and for God, skewed by their own depraved nature.
More to Come
The Moral Nature of God (Part 3)
Divine Origination of Morality
Having established the moral nature of God guiding and constraining the heavens and the earth, I want to return to certain moral dilemmas posed by agnostics or atheists. God defines the moral existence of living things. They fit into His hierarchy of value. God oversees and determines the worth and right or orthodox treatment or administration of people, not vice versa.
God originates, discharges, or initiates morality. He, therefore, defines it too. Men do not sit in judgment upon God about morals. They have morals, because God created them in His image.
To consider a basic truth: all men die. They can protest that, but morally they deserve it. In the history of the world, men went from eternal life before the Fall, to eight hundred to nine hundred sixty-nine years before the Flood, and now men physically die in seventy to one hundred years more or less. Life on the way to death comes with many varied complications. Sin affected and continues to affect all of this, which relates everything to morality.
The Capacity of God in Moral Judgment
On His throne in His eternal throne room in His special presence and everywhere in His omnipresence, God upholds and watches over everything and everyone. He judges all things in every place at all times. Nothing escapes His judgment. He not only knows the present, but the entire past and future, including the secrets of men’s hearts. Always what He judges or determines is true.
If God requires Israel to kill every member of a tribe of people in the Old Testament, like the Amalekites or those in Jericho or Ai, that judgment is right. God doesn’t need to justify what He does or requires others to do, but He can justify it and often does. He bases this on superior knowledge and moral virtue.
Hitler and the Nazis of World War 2 Germany committed genocide against the Jews. God loves the Jews. More than any other being, God loved, loves, and shall love. His love is immutable. Still, He allowed the Jewish genocide, even predicted these hard times for future Israel in biblical prophecies. God chastised Israel through the siege of Jerusalem that Jeremiah explains in Lamentations.
When God does something, it is moral. If He tells Saul to kill all the Amalekites, that is just, not allowing them to live. Obedience to God is better than the alternative always. This is not wholesale invitation or promotion of genocide though.
The Unworthiness of Man to Judge God
After Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:1-7, God cursed man, woman, and earth. The other creation of God participates in that curse. Some might ask, why? And then they also might reject or repudiate God’s judgment in these matters.
Whether something is right or wrong, that is not up to people. They would have to start with a naturalistic explanation for why they’re in charge and able to make this determination. However, matter and motion can’t make judgments. If life is a mere accident, no one can be at fault for anything wrong or honored for anything right. The morals in God’s moral heaven and earth proceed from His moral nature. He is both Lawmaker and Judge.
Man’s depravity stops him from a successful moral judgment of God. He cannot see clearly through his lying eyes to know what is right and what is good. A man does not have the capacity to make a right judgment about what God does, causes, or allows.
Deserved Moral Judgment on All Men
By sin came death upon all men and death passed upon all men for all men sinned (Romans 5:12-19). Everything short of death is only by the work of the mercy of God by the grace of God. Salvation is of God (Jonah 2:9). It is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8-9). God judges righteous judgment in the death of sinners. Animals also die as they do because of God’s moral purpose. The curse of sin touches all of His creation, reminding mankind of the detrimental effects of sin. His only escape is the salvation of the Lord.
God authors morality. True moral judgments come from God. He is the final infallible authority for what is right and good. All men defer to His will for His creation.
More to Come
The Moral Nature of God (Part 2)
Heaven and Earth Necessitate a Cause
God is holy. God is good. He is righteous. He is love and more. Moral attributes are the essence of God.
We know that the heavens and the earth have a beginning. Since they do, they must have a cause. The cause of the heavens and the earth — space, matter, time, and energy — must arise from an uncaused cause, or else an eternal regression of causes.
Infinite, Powerful, and Personal Creator
To cause the heavens and the earth necessarily requires an infinite and powerful creator. No natural cause could precede as the first cause of the natural world. It must, therefore, exist outside of the natural world.
The natural world also demands a personal creator or else the cause would be just another natural thing. Related to something that begins to exist, causation comprises agency. For something to come into existence at a particular moment, a personal agent chooses to bring it into being. Only a personal cause can make that decision.
Tracing Back the Moral Attributes in Man’s Nature
Mankind is part of what God caused and moral attributes in man’s nature trace back to God in their origination. People accept, recognize, or acknowledge the reality of morals. Men judge between good and evil. A worldwide recognition of moral law points to one that transcends human opinion.
If all that exists is matter, space, and time, like naturalism says, then there is no foundation for objective moral values. The one and only God, Who alone created the heavens and the earth, is a moral being. No standard for morality exists outside of a transcendent God, separate from His creation.
Objective Moral Values
When witnessing a crime such as robbery, the act is not deemed wrong solely based on personal feelings or societal consensus. Robbery is recognized as objectively wrong because it violates a moral standard that exists independently of individual perspectives. Theologian John Frame compares two potential sources for absolute moral authority: impersonal and personal.
According to Frame, if moral authority were to stem from an impersonal source, such as a universal law or fate, it raises questions about obligation. For example, if fate dictates certain outcomes, individuals may feel no inherent obligation to adhere to this impersonal law. In contrast, if moral authority is derived from a personal source — specifically God — then there exists a clear obligation to obey divine commands because God is viewed as a supremely wise and authoritative figure.
Moral Authority from God
Without God, morality would devolve into mere subjective preferences or cultural relativism. This leads to the conclusion that true moral obligations require a grounding in the character and will of a personal God who embodies these absolute standards.
Since moral standards start with God, men should look to God for theirs. This is God’s world. Everything operates according to the confines and scruples of His nature.
Moral authority proceeds from the personal God. This means a clear obligation to obey His words, sayings, and commandments. His will is the basis for which to judge and by which He judges everything.
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