I wandered over to SharperIron and the new administration there posted the first two resolutions of this year’s Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International. Reading both these resolutions makes me so glad not to be a part of the FBFI, oh so glad. Baptists historically are first characterized by having the Bible as their sole authority for faith and practice. I wish these two resolutions could have come from Scripture. They would have seemed Baptist then. They do seem to be more fundamentalistic than Baptist, and mainly the fundamentalism of Bob Jones University and its orbiting colleges and seminaries.

Someone recently told me that I “obsess” on the issue of this first resolution. I was reacting to a posting, which is something that Spurgeon said that related directly to the issue. I didn’t make the resolution. I’m just reacting to the one that FBFI made. I’m simply responding to a resolution that they wrote. They feel a need to write more about this issue. They talk about not having time to deal with it and they bring it up again and again. They have plenty of time to deal with the issue. I’d be glad to debate any of them about the subject. I’ve recently done that online. Mark Minnick talks to Mark Dever about fundamentalism. Right out of the box comes the King James Only issue. Men of the FBFI want to use whatever version of the Bible and not get in trouble with it. They want those who say anything to be the ones who are in trouble with them. If this is what they believe, they shouldn’t need a resolution to give them comfort about what they believe and practice.

The first resolution is full of irony that I will be glad to point out. They have obviously made the point that men with a Biblical and historic belief will not be welcome in the FBFI. It seems that so many of the FBFI are quite comfortable with the ways of the so-called “conservative evangelicals.” They’ll go to be with the Together for the Gospel (T4G) guys with giddy enjoyment. Nothing holds a great many of the leaders of the FBFI from hob-nobbing with evangelicals who are not biblical separatists. We don’t get any resolutions about separating from these men. They are more comfortable with Charismatics (CJ Mahaney) than they are men who believe the Scriptural and historic position on preservation of Scripture.

Resolution Number One

Loyalty to God and His Word: Resolution Affirming the Biblical View of Inspiration, Texts, and Translation

Whereas The Bible claims that it is plenarily and verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit in its original writings;

The Bible claims that it will be preserved by God throughout the ages;

The Bible claims that its Spirit indwelt readers will be illumined by the Holy Spirit as they read;

The practice of translating the Scriptures into common languages was affirmed by the practice of Jesus Christ and the practice of the New Testament Church;

The Bible makes no claim to the specific manner by which it would be preserved, or to further inspiration or perfection through any translators in any language;

The FBFI affirms the orthodox, historic, and most importantly biblical doctrine of inspiration, affirming everything the Bible claims for itself, and rejecting, as a violation of Revelation 22:18-19, any so-called doctrine, teaching, or position concerning inspiration, preservation, or translation that goes beyond the specific claims of scripture.

A Sorry Resolution

I can’t but say that I’m angry with this resolution. I can’t help but say that it really is full of absolute fabrication, invention of men. They can make their resolutions, but the God of Heaven sits on His throne and laughs. Their counsel will not stand. God’s Words will not pass away, even as their committee will.

When I read this resolution, I can see that it is very careful in its wording, really in a deceptive way. Unless you read it closely, you will not see that it attempts very hard to say very little. It leaves room for a semi-truck to drive through the doctrine of inerrancy. I’ll show you how.

The Title of the Resolution

Loyalty to God and His Word: Resolution Affirming the Biblical View of Inspiration, Texts, and Translation

This resolution isn’t loyal to God or His Word. It is loyal to man-made organizations and human reasoning. Someone could argue that they’re right about inspiration but it provides wide latitude for wrong doctrine. It does nothing to indicate how a Christian should apply Scripture to the issue of the translation of the Bible. It especially does nothing for a Biblical view of “texts.” You should take notice that it doesn’t say “Biblical View of Preservation.” They don’t care if you know what Scripture says about that issue. They say “texts,” as if there are several “texts” of Scripture. They aren’t talking about references or texts of the Bible that teach certain doctrine about God’s Word. The only passage they reference in the entire resolution throws in Revelation 22:18-19 a mile away from its teaching and application. They want to use the warning of Revelation 22:18-19 without an understanding of what that passage even says.

They talk about inspiration in the resolution, but their point is to somehow accuse men who believe in the Scriptural and historic point of view of teaching some kind of ongoing inspiration. It’s a smear that they are not willing to debate. They are comfortable with ad hominem, scorn, and ridicule. They can’t discuss it in any kind of civil manner because they don’t have Scripture to stand on. In the end, God and His Word still stands like a Rock in the midst of their attacks.

Line One of the Resolution

The Bible claims that it is plenarily and verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit in its original writings;

You may say, “What’s wrong with that line? I agree with that.” Maybe you do believe in it. The line; however, is not Scriptural. It could be, but the way that it is stated makes it ambiguous enough that it is not likely teaching what the Bible says about its own inspiration. It leaves the door open for errors in Scripture.

The committee that made up this resolution ended it by writing, “[T]hat goes beyond the specific claims of scripture.” It is amazing that a group of people who would defend the “Sunday School” in resolution two would say something about going beyond the specific claims of Scripture. This is one of the ironies. However, they say this kind of thing to end the resolution because nowhere does God say in Scripture that He would preserve “the textus receptus.” That’s the extent of this argumentation. Of course, neither does God say in the Bible that He would write twenty-seven books in the New Testament. That goes beyond the specific claim of Scripture, but that’s acceptable to them. Why? Because they say so. This committee does. Believe me, this is what they’re talking about when they make this line in the resolution.

I bring this up because their first line of the resolution goes beyond the specific claim of the Bible about inspiration. Here’s what God’s Word says about inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

All (pasa = “every”) scripture (graphe = “writing”) is given by inspiration of God (theopneustos = “God-breathed”). God breathed every writing. He didn’t breath “the Bible.” You may think that I’m getting too technical. However, I know how these men can slightly alter what Scripture says to fit what they want it to say. God inspired every writing.

In the Greek New Testament, there’s actually no verb in v. 16. The first verb we get is in v. 17 and it is the present subjunctive of the being verb. Most of the God-breathed copies in Paul’s day were copies. Having inspired writings were necessary to be fully qualified as a man of God. The writings around were mainly copies, so copies must have been considered to be inspired. The assumption of the text is that the identical writings that God breathed were the same ones sufficiently providing believers in Paul’s day. In application, we can assume that the writings will be available to us as well.

I’m talking about a couple of specific claims of the text. God breathed every writing, not just the Bible as a whole. They would probably say that they meant that when they said “plenarily and verbally.” The original writings were those breathed out by God. However, the text says that those same writings were what were equipping Paul and Timothy in the age in which they lived. Copies must have been considered to be still inspired. Verbal, plenary preservation is assumed by 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

They shift the emphasis from “every writing” to “the Bible” as a whole. All writings and every one of them were breathed out by God. These fundamentalists like to talk about the Bible as a whole. They don’t believe we still have the individual writings. That is how they depart from what we see in the specific claims of Scripture. They don’t want to believe that we have “every writing” available today to sufficiently equip us to do every good work expected by God. That is one reason why they will write “The Bible” and then refer to what God wrote as “it.” It isn’t “them” as in “every writing,” but “it,” as in the Bible as a whole.

Line Two in the Resolution

The Bible claims that it will be preserved by God throughout the ages;

You can see how that “the Bible” and “it” comes in very handy for their belief system in the second line of the resolution. These are men that do know what they are doing. The Bible does say that it will be preserved by God. However, it says more than this. God’s Word says that “every letter” will be preserved by God (Matthew 5:17-18), not just “it.” Scripture also teaches that God’s Words would not disappear (Matthew 24:35), not just “it.” I believe the Bible also says God will keep His Words for every generation (Psalm 12:6-7).

“Throughout the ages” is also very ambivalent. Nowhere does the Bible use this Scriptural-sounding phrase to describe preservation. What Scripture does say is that God’s Words would be available for every generation of His people (Isaiah 59:21; cf. Mt. 4:4). Now if they really do believe that the Bible claims that it will be preserved throughout the ages, they will have trouble with what Central Baptist Theological Seminary wrote in their book on Scripture several years ago, which is now called Only One Bible? They said that the Bible doesn’t teach that anywhere. They said that it was a logical conclusion, not that the Bible actually claimed that.

The major failure in this line; however, that doesn’t fit with specific claims of Scripture is that the Bible, “it” as a whole, is what God would preserve. They don’t believe we surely know what all the Words of God in the Bible are. For that reason, they concoct this totally unscriptural view that God said He was preserving the Bible as a whole. Scripture doesn’t say anything like that. It says that God would preserve every Word for every generation.

Mike Harding is a well-known pastor in the midwest, who is on many various fundamental boards, including the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship. He is also one of the authors of God’s Word in our Hands, a contribution from the fundamentalist electic text crowd to their view of the text issue. Mike Harding has written recently that using the KJV only (which I’ve explained in the other two posts) is:
1. A Great Danger
2. The Greatest Embarassment to Historic Fundamentalism
3. Intellectually Bankrupt
4. Dishonest
5. Laughable
6. Serious in Its Consequences
7. A New Sect

I’ve been analyzing his claim, essentially showing how that it is just the opposite. It will be up to you to decide. Obviously, God is our final judge and He is the One we should all be concerned about. I hope we all keep that in mind, that is, that we want to take the biblical position, the one that honors the Almighty.

So far I’ve covered #1-4, and now we continue.

5. Laughable

I can honestly say that I’ve never been able to laugh at false doctrine. Even if KJVO were false doctrine, how is it something to laugh at? I’ve thought about how funny I think the critical text and eclectic guys are with their positions, and I can’t scrape up one chuckle out of their positions. I get only sorrow or anger. I can’t even feel ambivalent about their position, let alone laugh at it. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against laughing. It has crossed my mind to ridicule them. It’s just that some things aren’t funny—false doctrine is one of those.

But Mike Harding finds KJVO to be laughable. I have to say that I find this often to be the case with fundamentalists of Harding’s stripe. It is completely mean-spirited, not in fitting with a scriptural Christian testimony. I’m not saying he’s not saved; I’m saying that laughing about these kinds of things doesn’t fit with what the Bible describes as Christian character. It’s one thing to laugh, but another thing to report it as if he is proud of laughing.

To these guys, “laughable” stands as some sort of argument. You should all know that it doesn’t work as an argument to anyone except to one influenced by such carnal weaponry as being laughed at. We see this type of strategy with the unbelievers in 2 Peter 3. They laugh (scoff) at the doctrine of the second coming. It’s laughable to them. Why? Because they can’t see Christ. He hasn’t shown up, even though He promised He would come. They laugh to intimidate. I can’t be happy about this kind of laughter.

I guess that “laughable” would be to say that the perfect preservation of Scripture position is stupid. In Scripture, doubting God is stupid. In the end it is God Who will laugh at those who don’t trust Him. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision” (Psalm 2:4).

6. Serious In Its Consequences

This one is very much like “a great danger,” mentioned earlier. What are the consequences of believing that there is only one Bible? Harding says they are serious. In my opinion, they are only seriously good, so in that way, I agree with him. The consequences of KJVO are seriously good. However, I do think that believing that we have options when it comes to the Bible has very serious, bad consequences. People often stop trusting Scripture. When I go door-to-door in evangelism, many times I hear inviduals tell me that there are “so many Bibles out there.” That’s reason enough for them not to believe the Bible. How can they know “which Bible is true?” This has been created by the many versions of the Bible that all have different words. And they do. And this is Harding’s position, the one that causes this kind of doubt.

And then there is the matter of inerrancy. The MVO (Multiple Version Only) people go all over the place with this, and everything has become extremely convoluted. They tell people that there are up to 7% differences between texts, and yet the Bible is inerrant. And then when you look at the Critical Text, you see actual errors and contradictions in the text. And they say that it doesn’t matter, because all the doctrines of the Bible are still in there. They say that not all the errors were purposeful, only some of them. And they say that we don’t know what the original words were, but we do know that those words were perfect. And how can we trust that? How can we trust that the Words were perfect in the originals? They say that God could keep men from putting errors in the original, but that He hasn’t been able to do that or hasn’t chosen to (even though He promised He would) with the copies that we still have.

And has this made a difference? Of course it has. People often believe the Bible is without error and then these MVO men get their teeth into these professing believers. Man after man has turned from the faith because they once thought the Bible was perfect. Do they really want to give up the world and the pleasures of sin for something that doesn’t sound like it is so sure? And these MVO guys say that it is sure enough. But is it perfect?

Cults and false religions have a field day with “mistakes” in the Bible, constantly quoting MVO men to make their point. They feel justified in taking a stand against Scripture because of the teaching from the MVO that there are errors in the Bible.

Do you see where the really serious consequences are? They are not with the people that believe there is only one Bible.

7. A New Sect

There are really two parts to this charge from Harding and James Price. Are those of the belief that there is only one Bible a sect? And is this belief new? We should understand what a “sect” is first. Wikipedia says:

In the sociology of religion a sect is generally a small religious or political group that has broken off from a larger group, for example from a large, well-established religious group, like a denomination, usually due to a dispute about doctrinal matters. In its historical usage in Christendom the term has a pejorative connotation and refers to a movement committed to heretical beliefs and that often deviated from orthodox practices.

Notice that Wikipedia recognizes that the word “sect” is a pejorative term. That’s what Price and then Harding are doing. What is a pejorative, by the way? Wikipedia says:

A word is a term of derision, or a phrase is pejorative, if it implies contempt or disapproval. The adjective pejorative is synonymous with derogatory, derisive, and dyslogistic. When used as an adjective, pejorative has two meanings: (1) tending to make or become worse, and (2) tending to disparage or belittle. When used as a noun, pejorative means “a belittling or disparaging word or expression.”

So Price and Harding are being purposefully derisive with their term “sect,” in an attempt to belittle KJVO men. It accomplishes very little to deride someone, but that’s what the MVO people choose to do. It’s how they are. They are name-callers. Name calling is the MVO modus operandi. How intelligent do you believe that this kind of mud-slinging is? Just asking. Because it does remind me of the ancient Chinest proverb:

He who throws mud loses ground.

Of course, if it is new, then maybe KJVO is a sect. But is it? Or is it possible that the new belief is the MVO belief? The truth is that the MVO position is the new position, rising up in the same era as the Jehovah Witnesses, the Campbellites, and the Mormons. Calling a position of ‘only one Bible’ something new is sheer revisionism. However, it is important to the MVO people to create their fake history. They must make the Scriptural belief in preservation look brand new.

How do they make the position of one Bible look new? When you read God’s Word in our Hands and Sproul’s God’s Word Preserved, they spend a big chunk of their books attempting to invent their history. Go ahead and read them yourselves. They go back into the 17th century with a few quotes, including the preface of the KJV by the translators, to show that men were not against improving a translation. That is a non-point, a totally moot issue. It doesn’t make any difference at all regarding one Bible. Then they go into the 18th and 19th century doing the same thing, that is, giving quotes that show that men didn’t mind changing the words of the translation to give the sense of their meaning. Again, these quotes don’t show at all that these men didn’t believe in one Bible. Around the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, you start reading quotes of men who thought it was fine to tweak the words in the actual text of Scripture. Of course, this was after the rise of Biblical criticism and then the work of Westcott and Hort, the Revised Edition of 1881, and then especially Benjamin Warfield’s brand new interpretation of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Warfield loosely constructed the WCF, reading textual criticism into “providentially preserved,” and giving the MVO guys the history that they didn’t have. Now the MVO’s choose to believe that they have an ancient history. It is definitely the ostrich with the head in the sand. This is a common twist of “scholarship,” that is, to invent a history when there is none. And they talk of “dishonest.” This is dishonesty to the fullest degree. If they have any honesty and intelligence, they would do away with this tactic, which is all it is, a strategy.

And now the MVO books spend page after page stating the new history. On top of that, they invent a history for one Bible people with the whole Wilkinson (the 7th Day Adventist) and David Otis Fuller history. Believe me; God’s people have believed in one Bible and that God preserved all His Words perfectly. That’s what history shows. I have no doubt that Wilkinson and Fuller believed the same, but they did not start the belief in one Bible. I’ve written enough on this before, so I’m going to provide links to other things I have written to show the true history of the only one Bible belief (here, here, here, and here; also look at some of Bro. Tom Ross’s writing here).

Mike Harding and others are hanging on to a belief with great tenacity that is bereft of Scriptural presuppositions. You should judge for yourself and not be intimidated by their ridicule and bullying tactics. God’s Word is perfect. Every Word is preserved and accessible to God’s people.

I’ve come back to say that I wouldn’t call preservation of scripture a miracle any more.  I would say that God uses supernatural means, working outside of natural laws.  I came to the conclusion since I wrote this that a miracle is confined to a “sign” in scripture, which ended in the first century.

Do we have a specific, Scriptural reason why to call inspiration a miracle and preservation only providence? What does it matter? Some people think this is an important division. Consider how Mike Harding, one of the authors of God’s Word in Our Hands, has answered this:

[T]here is no promise in God’s Word for a miraculous, immediate, divine working in the copyists or translators. Such a promise would necessitate continuous miracles each time the Bible was copied or translated. Claiming such a promise would be adding a new doctrine to God’s Word. A biblically defined miracle is the direct application of God’s power into the universe. A work of providence, however, is indirect, as opposed to miraculous intervention. God has promised to preserve His Word through secondary causation (Ps 119:152), but not through a miraculous transmission of the text.

According to Harding, no errors in the originals because of inspiration is a miracle, but errors in our Bible because of preservation is providence. Why is it so important to differentiate these two? I’ve never heard providence and miracle picked at so much. This is a vital differentiation to him and others like him because they think it directly connects “providential preservation” (as seen in the Westminster Confession) and “textual criticism.” Notice that Harding says, “biblically defined miracle.” Where does the Bible define “miracle?” Of course, it doesn’t anywhere, but Harding wants you to believe that. Harding’s contention, really invented out of thin air, is that providence allows mistakes into Scripture, while a miracle would keep out any errors from God’s Word.

If you read Henry Morris’ book on miracles (I think it’s called Miracles—I read it at my father-in-law’s last Christmas vacation), he says that providence is a miracle. On the other hand, in Martin Lloyd-Jones’ book, God the Father, God the Son, he says that miracles are a sub-category of providence. In the Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (T & T Clark, 1867, p. 331), Keil and Delitzch write the terminology, “the miracle of divine providence.” Cotton Mather in 1631 called Urian Oakes a “Miracle of Divine Providence.” Herbert Lockyer in his All the Miracles of the Bible writes concerning Elijah that “his daily prayer of faith was answered by a daily miracle of God’s providence in the unfailing supply of meal and oil” (p. 111). In 1882 in his biography, Oliver Cromwell: His Man and His Mission, James Picton writes that in the mid-17th century Cromwell believed that “peace preserved amidst the perservering efforts of faction was a miracle of God’s providence” (p. 484).

Many say that Divine providence is a miracle. It even reads like historic doctrine. When we read Scripture, we don’t see what might be termed “providence,” such as the events of the book of Esther, to be a lesser miracle than the so-called immediately caused hand of God. These events of providence, such as the raising up of Cyrus by God to deliver Judah from Babylon, are not relegated to a second class act of the Lord. I know of nowhere historically that providence is separated from miracle.

Apparently, in order to keep textual criticism within the confines of the historic theology of believing confessions (Westminster, London Baptist, etc.), modern textual critics and their supporters must reinvent the providence of God. By doing so, they can fabricate their own history. This isn’t unique to Biblical criticism. We have the miracle of God’s creation attacked by theistic evolutionists who say that evolution can explain how God providentially brought the world into existence. As a result, among others, Mike Harding writes:

A miracle is the direct application of God’s power to this time, space, mass continuum. Providence is God working through secondary causation. Inspiration is a miracle resulting in an inerrant manuscript. Providence is not a miracle. This is why there are differences in the manuscript copies. Textual Criticism examines the mss differences in order to discern the original text when there are important differences in the textual data.

We don’t believe that God failed in inspiration. We don’t believe that God failed in preservation. Martin Lloyd-Jones, in his essay on providence, writes concerning God’s preservation:

The Bible teaches that God preserves everything that He has made. It is a continuous work. Some have tried to say that this doctrine of preservation simply means that God does not destroy the work He once made, but that is not preservation. It means more than that; it means that He keeps everything in being. . . . [E]verything that has been created by God has a real and permanent existence of its own, apart from the being of God, but that must never be taken to mean that it is self-existent, which belongs to God alone. If things were self-existent they would not need God in order to keep going. That is the difference. God has created a thing, and He keeps it alive. He upholds all things, and they continue to exist as the result of a positive and continued exercise of His divine power.

Lloyd-Jones sees preservation as providence and it is the continued exercise of God’s power, which is by nature supernatural.

God has supernaturally preserved His Word. He has providentially preserved His Word. God has done a miracle of providence. Since it is a miracle, I can’t explain the details of how He did it any more than I can decipher how Jesus fed the five thousand. I just know He did, and I know God kept every Word because He promised He would. With that faith, we can understand how God perfectly collated His Words into one perfect book. We comprehend by faith that God brought together sixty-six books, despite the fact that the Lord never promised a certain number. That is a miracle. That is providence.

Mike Harding and others don’t mind throwing providence under the bus in order to keep intact their particular view of textual criticism. Ironically, Harding and others find it quite easy to call anyone who believes in the perfect preservation of Scripture to be guilty of some kind of heresy or perversion of historic doctrine of Scripture. In reality, it is so much the opposite. They posit the new view that can’t be traced before the late 19th century and the work of Benjamin Warfield. I actually like Harding when I read him, but he’s all wrong here and I wish he and others could see it. He and others like him not only do great damage to a Scriptural view of preservation, but now to what the Bible teaches about God’s supernatural workings to fulfill His promises through history.