John 3:36, the Second “Believeth” (Apeitheo), and English Translation of the Bible
The King James Version (KJV) of John 3:36 reads:
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
(1) in relation to God disobey, be disobedient (RO 11.30); (2) of the most severe form of disobedience, in relation to the gospel message disbelieve, refuse to believe, be an unbeliever.
not to allow oneself to be persuaded; not to comply with; a. to refuse or withhold belief
What Is the Primary Cause of Division in the United States?
Our country is divided. Many say it is more divided than any time since the Civil War. Most of you readers live here, so this is no surprise to you. Many articles and even whole books have been written in the last decade on the division in the United States, but the present situation provoked some to write in the last month on the subject. The following paragraph represents writing in the last month on severe division in America.
The City Journal published an article by Andrew Klavan, titled, “At the Heart of Our Divisions.” Klavan, part of Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, tries to explain the division as others have. Newsweek reports that a “Majority of Trump Voters Want to Split the Nation Into ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Halves.” The Las Vegas Sun reported it this way:
A new political poll offers an alarming look at the state of American unity and our population’s respect for some of the nation’s core values.
The poll, conducted by the University of Virginia’s nonprofit Center for Politics, shows that 52% of respondents who voted for former President Donald Trump were in favor of splitting the country into red and blue states, while 41% of voters for President Joe Biden agree with the idea. More than 2,000 voters participated in the poll, nearly equally divided between those supporting Trump and Biden.
Ed Kilgore at The Intelligencer, part of New York Magazine, writes, “No, We Can’t Get a National Divorce There’s growing sentiment for secession, particularly on the right. It should be rejected.” At Substack, Claremont senior fellow David Reaboi writes, “National Divorce Is Expensive, But It’s Worth Every Penny.” Karol Markowicz writes at the New York Post, “Sorry, but a national split up just won’t work.” Steven Malanga at the City Journal writes, “The New Secession Movement.” Conservative commentator Rich Lowry writes at Politico of all places, “A Surprising Share of Americans Wants to Break Up the Country. Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” Dan Rodricks writes at the Baltimore Sun, “Civil war unlikely, but the nation’s present course could still be disastrous.” Most of these were written in the last week, and there are more.
Okay, so there’s division. Everyone can agree with that. Putin of Russia and Xi of China smile. Why though? I’ve read or heard a lot of different reasons: media, tribalism, the education system, the deep state, and more. Klavan lists reasons in the first paragraph of his post. Those are typical, whole books written about them, but I believe these are surface reasons, I would call, non-worldview reasons, that are superficial and don’t dig deep enough.
My take on the acute and bitter division between states, people, and parties in the United States, I want to give credit, corresponds to something Nancy Pearcey writes about in her book, Total Truth. She explains a division portrayed by the lower and upper stories of a building or house with the lower story being “facts” and the upper story being “values.” Today you hear a lot about facts in the media, news, and schools. This is the “science is real” at the top of the leftist value sign. In this upper and lower story bifurcation, values are probably not what you think they are. Let me explain.
God is One. Truth, which proceeds from God, is also one. Pearcey’s proposition is “total truth,” the title of her book. There are not two stories that treat facts different than values, where values are constructed, personal and subjective. You can’t really know these with certainty. No, with God His natural laws, facts or science, are no different than moral laws. If you fall from the edge of a cliff, gravity sends you down to destruction. Breaking moral laws also destroys. Worse even. God is the Author of both.
Premoderns took a transcendent view of the world. Truth, goodness, and beauty, the transcendentals, all related to God. God transcending the world is the basis of the transcendentals. He’s not part of the world. He created it and having created it, He is separate from it. As James 1 says, that with God there is no shadow of turning. God is holy. He is Self-existent and immutable. Nothing affects Him. All meaning comes from God, so truth, goodness, and beauty, the transcendentals, are objective.
This world is God’s world. Even if someone doesn’t believe in God, they are living in His world. This is reality. The division breaks down into those who live in reality, recognition that this world functions according to laws according to which everyone must live, even if they reject the God of the Bible, and then those who don’t live in reality.
The ones not living in reality, which are one side of the division in the United States, see the top story, values, how they want to see them. It’s one reason they are called “values,” and not “morals” or “moral laws.” Using “values” is using language with power. Incidentally, part of critical theory is perfecting this language for use in reconstructing reality.
Looking at the world like two sides of the campus, religion, art, etc. on one side and then science, math, and engineering on the other, the blue part of the country thinks they can assign their own meaning on one side of the campus. They ultimately don’t want God in charge. They don’t want objective values that clash with what they want, so they make up their own and dismiss God or make up their own god that approves of their values. This is the basis for the Democrat party booing God when voting on their political platform in 2012. This is also how they justify killing babies.
The truth is that the blue states, people, etc. now assign their own meaning to science as well. They call it science like hanging out a shingle, pulling science out of a Cracker Jack box. Their subjectivity on the upper story, think of it as bad plumbing, has burst through into the lower story like a broken pipe. That side can’t tell you that a girl is a girl. This is one reason why many don’t want to go to college in this country anymore. They know it’s a racket that is not living in reality.
One side of the division in the country wants the nation to be called like it really is. Borders are representative of this. You can’t be a nation when you don’t protect, not just protect — how about acknowledge that you have a border. Whatever one thinks about the virus and masks and the vaccination, it’s understandable why a big chunk of the country doesn’t trust authority on this. I’m not going to even get into what Fauci has said. He doesn’t speak science and this is demonstrative on multiple occasions.
The government, the media that supports it, and now even corporations are all in on the lies. They allot whatever meaning they want and they expect you to receive it. If you don’t, now they’ll even prosecute you. They’ll fire you. If you don’t put on their particular pin, which supports whatever lie that they deem correct, you might lose your job.
I believe most churches too have succumbed to the two stories I’ve described. They put beauty, music, dress in the personal, the subjective, the top story. They capitulate on basic doctrine and practice to accommodate for popularity and numbers. Their targets see the world according to the lie of these two stories. They know it and they concede to it. This does not bode well for the country. Even if the nation does split into two parts, what will happen to the red side when the churches have taken the same basic approach to truth? This is the most fundamental aspect of worldliness in churches today.
Another metaphor to demonstrate what the division of truth, the two story view, does to the country is a rudderless ship. The country has no certain belief to hold it together or to give it direction. It moves according to whatever current or wind produced by the world, like a float or a bob on an aimless sea. The force of popularity, what scripture would call lust, the combined desires of the population, decides what is it’s truth, it’s goodness, and it’s beauty, whatever each of these is in their own eyes.
Everything above explains the division in the country. Maybe the next question is, what is the solution to this division? That, my friend, is much more difficult.
Binding and Loosing–What Are They? Matthew 16:19; 18:18; Catholic, Pentecostal, Keswick, and Bible Views
Do you know what it means that the church can bind and loose? The Bible reads:
Matt. 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Matt. 18:18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
The Roman Catholic Church claims that binding and loosing are associated with an infallible power their religious organization, led by the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra, from the chair of the (alleged) first Pope, Peter, to supposedly infallibly determine doctrine. Pentecostal, charismatic, Word of Faith and Keswick proponents claim to have the authority to bind Satan. What does Scripture teach?
I discussed this question in a Greek class I taught going through William Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek, from 5:56-19:23 into the class video. Click here to watch the video on YouTube (and please feel free to subscribe to the KJB1611 YouTube channel, post a comment or “like” the video)
or watch the video embedded below:
Learn what Scripture teaches about binding and loosing!
–TDR
What Does “Led By or Of the Spirit” Mean?
If you are a professing Christian, you have heard such a sentence as, “I was led by the Spirit.” I’ve heard it in the form of a question, “Are you led of the Spirit of God?” It can be put in the negative, “He isn’t led of the Spirit,” very often speaking of a believer, implying that some believers are led of the Spirit and others are not.
Romans 8:14, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.Galatians 5:18, But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
In the preceding context Paul discovers to us our inherent sin in all its festering rottenness. But he discovers to us also the Spirit of God as dwelling in us and forming the principle of a new life. It is by the presence of the Spirit within us alone that the bondage in which we are by nature held to sin is broken; that we are emancipated from sin and are no longer debtors to live according to the flesh. This new principle of life reveals itself in our consciousness as a power claiming regulative influence over our actions; leading us, in a word, into holiness.
When we consider this Divine work within our souls with reference to the end of the whole process we call it sanctification; when we consider it with reference to the process itself, as we struggle on day by day in the somewhat devious and always thorny pathway of life, we call it spiritual leading. Thus the “leading of the Holy Spirit” is revealed to us as simply a synonym for sanctification when looked at from the point of view of the pathway itself, through which we are led by the Spirit as we more and more advance toward that conformity to the image of His Son, which God has placed before us as our great goal.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Sleepy Habits
In the early 17th century, Puritan Richard Sibbes preaches a sermon entitled, “The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax,” published in 1630 in a book with the same name, The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax, in which he said:
Keep grace in exercise; it is not sleepy habits but grace in exercise that preserveth us. Whilst the soul is in some civil or sacred employment, corruptions within us are much suppressed, and Satan’s passages stopped, and the Spirit bath a way open to enlarge itself in us, and likewise the guard of angels then most nearly attend us; which course often prevails more against our spiritual enemies, than direct opposition. It stands upon Christ’s honour to maintain those that are employed in his works.
I was drawn to his words, “sleepy habits,” recently, their meaning and their historic usage. Sibbes preached, believing that some of the church members were not really saved, or some that he thought were saved, but really were not. Even though God keeps all of His own, the ones God kept would also endure or overcome. They would not endure with “sleepy habits,” but “grace in exercise.”
Another Puritan, Thomas Brooks, used the same language in a book published in 1670, entitled (you’ll like this one), London’s Lamentations Or, A Serious Discourse Concerning that Late Fiery Dispensation that Turned Our (once Renowned) City Into a Ruinous Heap. Also the Several Lessons that are Incumbent Upon Those Whose Houses Have Escaped the Consuming Flames. He wrote:
Secondly, God by severe Providences and by fiery trials designs a further exercise of his childrens graces; sleepy habits bring him no glory. nor do us no good. All the honour he has, and all the advantage we have in this world, is from the active part of grace.
On another page, he wrote:
Sleepy habits will do you no good, nor bring God no glory; all the honour he hath, and all the comfort and advantage you have, is from the active part of grace.
Another Puritan, Thomas Manton (1620-1677), wrote:
A man is not to keep grace to himself, but to exercise it for the glory of God and the good of others. Therefore is the presence of the Holy Ghost necessary, that the grace which he hath wrought may not lie dead in sleepy habits, but be continually acted and drawn forth, in such lively operations as may demonstrate the cause whence they do proceed.
He also wrote in his Sermons on the Twenty-Fifth Chapter of Matthew:
All Grace is stirring, and would fain break out into action; for ’tis not a dead and sleepy habit, but seeketh to break forth, and is called by the Apostle, “The Lustings of the Spirit,” Gal. 5.17.
Later in the same book, he wrote:
‘Tis not a naked and empty Profession, ’tis not sleepy habits, or a little Grace, but when Grace hath a deep power and sovereignty over our Hearts and Lives, that bringeth God into request, and commendeth him to the Consciences of men. The Knowledge of Christ is reproached as a low Institution by carnal men; but to the truly wise, no such excellent and noble Spirits, as they that are bred up under him.
Sleepy habits seem to be those when we are going through the motions, what we might call, “punching the time clock.” We are sleepwalking our way like a kind of mindless zombie with the aspects of our life. These writers call this something that does not resemble the grace of God or could not be fueled or energized by the grace of God.
Good habits sound good and bad habits sound bad. They are. What would be so bad about having habits in the Christian life? In a true relationship with God, the Christian life must be more than just a habit. “Sleepy habits” is a good way of describing when its only a habit. Habits aren’t bad, but there’s more to it when it’s a relationship. It’s not just doing what you’re supposed to do.
If the Christian life for you is a sleepy habit, maybe you’re not saved. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
Sermons on the Sabbath & Lord’s Day: Old and New Testament Evidence, and Seventh-Day Adventism Examined
I have had the privilege of preaching a series on the Sabbath and its relationship to the Lord’s Day. Topics covered include the Sabbath as Israel’s sign of creation and redemption; the way the Sabbath points forward to redemptive rest in the Lord Jesus Christ; Seventh-Day Adventist, Lutheran, Puritan, and dispensational Baptist views of the Sabbath; the question of whether churches in the New Testament era need to meet for worship on the Sabbath or on the Lord’s Day; and a careful study of the heresies, not just on the Sabbath, but on the doctrines of Scripture, God, Trinitarianism, Christ, salvation, last things, and many other areas of Seventh-Day Adventism, as explained in “Bible Truths for Seventh-Day Adventist Friends.”
To listen to the sermons and/or watch the preaching, please:
Click here to watch the series on the Sabbath
and feel free to add a comment, “like” the videos, and/or subscribe to the KJB1611 YouTube channel if you have not already do so.
There is probably one more message on the Sabbath coming, so feel free to check back. You can’t end a series with six messages instead of seven anyway, can you?
–TDR
Justification In Job, pt. 2
Justification by faith is both an Old Testament and a New Testament doctrine. It reads like a major theme in the book of Job, the oldest Old Testament book. Job’s friends speak to him about justification and Job answers about justification. Is Job justified?
A related aspect to justification is a common Old Testament Hebrew word, mishpot, translated “judgment.” Forms of mishpot occur 23 times in Job. “Judgment” and “righteousness” both have been assessed as the theme of the entire Bible. I can’t disagree with either assessment. Over ten years ago I read a book by James Hamilton, God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology, which proposed judgment as the subject of all of scripture. Men are judged by God as to whether they are righteous. He judges a man righteous, who is justified. Men also judge other men as to their justification, which is what Job’s friends were doing.
Judgment, mishpot, by God is based upon His righteous nature and standard or law. A popular recent, contemporary concept is “authenticity” or “authentic.” Job was authentic, and the normal or plain understanding of authentic has been based upon an objective standard, so outside of one’s own self. Self-authenticity is a kind of oxymoron. Just because you’re consistent with your own understanding of who you are doesn’t make you authentic. Naugahyde couldn’t be said to be authentic. Leather is. And one can judge leather by an objective standard. It was at one time the outer layer or skin of an animal.
Was Job justified? Was he an authentic righteous man? He, his friends, and finally God have this discussion. Satan said he wasn’t. God said he was. So what is it?
One of Job’s friends, Zophar, starts his speech in chapter 11, asking and using the ninth of twenty-eight usages of a form of the Hebrew verb form tsadek (v. 2):
Should not the multitude of words be answered? and should a man full of talk be justified?
Zophar insinuates overt loquaciousness of Job, implying Job’s justification of himself with his words. Zophar is suggesting that rather than the words of Job justifying him, it be the consequences of his actions. In other words, someone facing the hardship of Job couldn’t be righteous. In weighing Job’s talk against the gravity of his situation, Zophar infers that the latter condemns him. However, Job’s guilt or righteousness could not be judged by the circumstances of his life. Job has been arguing against the false conclusion that his trials evidenced unrighteousness.
In a second chapter of Job’s answer to Zophar in Job 13:18, he says:
Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.
12 Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and what do thy eyes wink at, 13 That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth? 14 What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous (tsadek)? 15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. 16 How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous (tsadek)? or is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?
4 How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? 5 Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. 6 How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?
Alas! and did my Savior bleed?And did my Sov’reign die?Would He devote that sacred headFor such a worm as I?
5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. 6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
I put on righteousness (tsadek), and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
Let me be weighed in an even (tsadek) balance, that God may know mine integrity.
Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified (tsadek) himself rather than God.
12 Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. . . . . 32 If thou hast any thing to say, answer me: speak, for I desire to justify thee.
For Job hath said, I am righteous (tsadek): and God hath taken away my judgment.
2 Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness (tsadek) is more than God’s? . . . . 7 If thou be righteous (tsadek), what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand?
I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness (tsadek) to my Maker.
Wilt thou also disannul my judgment (mishpot)? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous (tsadek)?
And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.
Justification In Job, pt. 1
When someone thinks of Job, the book of Job from the Old Testament of the Bible, maybe he doesn’t think of “justification.” I’ve taught through the whole book twice, once fast and the second fairly slowly. Recently I was reading through it the second time this year, moving through the Bible twice in this year, and the word, “justify,” stuck out this time to me.
When I taught slowly through Job, I taught the theme was the security of God. God kept Job. Job passed the test because of God. I taught that Job was about God and what He did, not about the person, Job. When we look at the names of the books of the Bible, we can think about the men of the Bible. However, the whole Bible is about God.
The Hebrew word, tsadek, that is translated, “just” or the forms of it, “justify,” “justified,” etc. is found at least twenty-eight times in Job. In this post or maybe a series of two of them, I want to look at all of those usages and how they fit into the book of Job. The word refers to something that is according to a standard that is of the nature and the will of God, so it is just, right, or righteous. It doesn’t fall short of the glory of God. The word applies to God. The standard for right or righteousness is God. Whether someone is righteous or just compares to God, not a human standard.
A big part of Job is whether Job is right with God. You could ask, Is he saved? To be saved, you have to stand before God as righteous. Apparently, Job was righteous, but not according to everyone. How righteous did he need to be? Whatever trials he went through, was it because he was not righteous or because he was? These are important questions. Everyone needs to think about them still. Here’s a last one. If God is the standard, His righteousness, how is Job or anyone else to be justified before God? This brings in the doctrine of justification. How is someone justified? Churches and religions differ as to the answers to these questions, and there is only one right answer.
I’m going to assume that you know, that in the story of Job (chapters 1-2), he is put through one of the most difficult trials ever for any human being in all history, losing all his children, his wealth, and his health. God allows Satan to put Job through this test to prove whether he’s really a righteous man. Satan says, no. God says, yes. While going through these severe circumstances, certain so-called friends of Job give him speeches, also casting doubt on his righteousness.
In Job 4, one of the friends, Eliphaz, talks to Job and argues essentially that people go through things like Job out of judgment for their sin. It had to be his sin. As further evidence, Eliphaz recounts in verses 12-16 that a spirit had given him (we know none sent by God gave him the message) the following message (verse 17), which is also the first usage of tsadek in the book of Job:
Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
It’s the word, “just.” Through the use of these questions, the message to Job is that he shouldn’t be justifying himself before God. Even though no angelic spirit communicated or even would communicate those questions to Eliphaz — you can’t be more just than God — it introduces the subject matter.
Job speaks in Job 6 and says in verse 29:
Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.
If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?
Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge.
If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.
If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction.
The Psalter Headings–Infallibly Accurate Scripture, Correctly Ascribing Authorship to David, etc.
Many today question whether the headings of the Psalms are inspired Scripture, and whether they accurately ascribe authorship to David, Asaph, and so on. The headings to the psalms are inspired, just like the rest of the Bible, and when they say that a psalm was composed by David, Asaph, Heman, or Moses, they record God’s inspired truth. A “Psalm of David” was actually written by David. A “Psalm of Asaph” was actually written by Asaph.
Here are some reasons why the psalm headings should be trusted:
[Theological liberal] Brevard Childs says, “A wide consensus has been reached among critical scholars for over a hundred years that the titles are secondary additions, which can afford no reliable information toward establishing the genuine historical setting of the Psalms.”5 As a result, psalm studies for more than a century have been adrift in conflicting opinions about their dates and meaning[.] … Fortunately, the tide of academic opinion concerning the antiquity and reliability of the superscriptions is slowly changing under the gravity of evidence. … Sumerian and Akkadian ritual texts dating from the third millennium contain rubrics corresponding to elements in the superscription,8 and so do Egyptian hymns from the Eighteenth Dynasty and later.9 Some psalms ascribed to David contain words, images, and parallelism now attested in the Ugaritic texts (ca. 1400 BC).10 Though many technical terms in the superscriptions were obscure to the Greek and Aramaic translators (which suggests a loss of a living tradition and an extended gap of time between their composition and the Tannaitic period, 70–200 AD), they neither alter nor omit them. No ancient version or Hebrew manuscript omits them. With regard to the antiquity of some psalms, there can scarcely be a question. … Linguistic, stylistic, structural, thematic, and theological differences are so great between the Psalter and its imitative thanksgiving psalm at Qumran as to leave no doubt of the far greater antiquity of the Psalter. … Authorship of the Psalms and of their historical backgrounds depends in part on the meaning of the Hebrew preposition le with a proper name, usually David.11 Though le can mean “belonging to a series,”12 it commonly denotes authorship in the Semitic languages.13 Within other literary genres le in superscriptions signifies “by” (cf. Isa. 38:9; Hab. 3:1). In the Old Testament as in other ancient Near Eastern literature, poets, unlike narrators, are not anonymous (cf. Exod. 15:1; Judg. 5:1). The meaning “by” is certain in the synoptic superscriptions of 2 Samuel 22:1 and Psalm 18:[1].
Other Scriptures abundantly testify that David was a musician and writer of sacred poetry. Saul discovered him in a talent hunt for a harpist (1 Sam. 16:14–23). Amos (6:5) associates his name with temple music. The Chronicler says that David and his officers assigned the inspired musical service to various guilds and that musicians were led under his hands (i.e., he led them by cheironomy—hand gestures indicating the rise and fall of the melody—as pictured in Egyptian iconography already in the Old Kingdom; 1 Chron. 23:5; 2 Chron. 29:26; Neh. 12:36).14 The Chronicler also represents King Hezekiah as renewing the Davidic appointments of psalmody. Hezekiah directed the sacrifices and accompanying praises in which the compositions of David and his assistant Asaph were prominent (2 Chron. 29:25–30). J. F. A. Sawyer says, “In the Chronicler’s day … it can scarcely be doubted that the meaning was ‘by David.’ ”15 This was the interpretation of Ben Sirach (47:8–10), the Qumran scrolls (11QPsa), Josephus,16 and the rabbis.17 The interpretation is foundational for the New Testament’s interpretation of the Psalter as testimony to Jesus as the Messiah (Matt. 22:43–45; Mark 12:36–37; Luke 20:42–44; Acts 1:16; 2:25, 34–35; 4:25–26; Rom. 4:6; 11:9–10; Heb. 4:7). …
This royal interpretation of the Psalter affects biblical theology in several ways. (1) It allows the reader to hear the most intimate thoughts of Israel’s greatest king. (2) It validates the New Testament attribution of select psalms to David as their author. And (3) it provides the firm basis of the grammatico-historical method of interpretation for the New Testament’s messianic interpretation of the Psalter. …
According to their superscriptions, Psalms 34, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 142 date from the time of David’s exile (1 Sam. 16–31); 18 and 60, from the time he is under blessing (2 Sam. 1–10); and 3, 51, 63, from when he is under wrath (2 Sam. 11–20). Psalms 7 and 30 are unclassified as to their precise dates (cf. 2 Sam. 21–24; for this threefold division of David’s career, see chaps. 22–23). In addition to the arguments given above for the credibility of the superscriptions, we ask, Why, if they are secondary additions, are the remaining fifty-nine Davidic psalms left without historical notices, especially when many of them easily could have been ascribed to some event in David’s life?22 Also, why would later editors introduce materials in the superscriptions of Psalms 7, 30, and 60 that are not found in historical books and not readily inferred from the Psalms themselves? Finally, why should it be allowed that psalms in the historical books contain superscriptions with historical notices (see Exod. 15:1; Deut. 31:30 [cf. 32:44]; Judg. 5:1; 2 Sam. 22:1; Jonah 2; Isa. 38:9) but those in the Psalter do not, even though the syntax is sometimes similar? (Bruce K. Waltke and Charles Yu, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007] 871–874).
So don’t doubt the psalm inscriptions. Receive them as infallible truth, just like you do the rest of the Bible.
–TDR
5 Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 520.
8 Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985), 13–24.
9 ANET, 365–81.
10 Mitchell Dahood, Psalms 1:1–50, AB (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995), xxix–xxx.
11 Moses (Ps. 90), David (73 times), Solomon (Pss. 72, 127), Korah, 42–49, 84–87), Asaph (50, 73–83), Heman (88), and Ethan (89).
12 BDB, 513, entry 5b.
13 GKC, 129c.
14 J. Wheeler, “Music of the Temple,” Archaeology and Biblical Research 2 (1989).
15 J. F. A. Sawyer, “An Analysis of the Context and Meaning of the Psalm,” Transactions 22 (1970): 6.
16 Josephus, Antiquities, 9.13.3.
17 Charles A. Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms (New York: Scribner, 1906–7), liv.
22 Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 1964), 28.
The link to Waltke’s OT theology is an affiliate link with Amazon.com.
An Orthodox View of Our English Bibles? Considering Fred Butler’s KJVO Book and the Doctrine of Preservation
Whenever I read the word, “Bibles,” I get a bit of a chill down my spine. Which Bible is the right Bible if there are plural Bibles, not singular Bible? Isn’t there just one? Why are we still producing more and different Bibles? How many are there? What I’m describing is the biggest issue today with translations, not the King James Version, but now it gets little to no coverage compared to other so-called problems.
Many anti-KJVO books have been written, most often, and this continues to be the case with Butler’s book, calling KJVO (King James Version Onlyism) “dangerous.” It’s true that many KJV Onlyists do not believe a scriptural bibliology. I would contend that most are sound, but it’s true also that many are not. That would be a worthwhile criticism of KJVO, confronting those who do not believe in the preservation of scripture, who do not believe God preserved His Words in the original languages, apparently necessitating God’s correction of them in an English translation. This happens to be the same doctrinal position as Fred Butler. He just deals with the consequences of that belief in a different way.
I don’t know how “dangerous” it is to believe in a single Bible of which translation for English speaking people is the King James Version. How will that get someone in trouble? What’s the danger? Even though Butler calls the position dangerous, he doesn’t explain why anywhere in his book, which I find is most often the case with books of this kind. In general, KJVO take the general position that there is only one Bible, which there is. That is a biblical, logical, and historical position: one Bible. Several Bibles is not.
In his preface, recounting his own personal journey away from the King James Version, Butler says,
I found myself helping them [speaking of others also departing] think critically through KJVO argumentation, as well as develop an orthodox view of our English Bibles.
Why and how is it orthodox to refer to the Bible in the plural, “Bibles”? Again, there is only one Bible, and historically Christians have believed in only one. Some type of multiple-versionism, I believe, creates far more confusion and danger. Usually orthodoxy refers to doctrine. Is the doctrine behind multiple versions and textual criticism orthodox? It’s popular today, but not orthodox.
I’m not going to debunk most of the arguments of Butler’s book. His book is exploring zero new territory others cover much more than he. He mainly addresses KJVO advocates of either double inspiration or English preservationism, very low hanging fruit. He barely to if-at-all distinguishes one view from another. He lumps Peter Ruckman and Gail Riplinger with Edward Hills, D. A. Waite, and David Cloud. He uses a very broad brush. I would not anticipate his persuading one person to his position.
One unique argument I had never read was that KJVO are not Calvinist. The idea here is that if you’re not a Calvinist, then you must be wrong in this position on the Bible. The biggest movement of those who exclusively use the KJV as an English translation are Calvinists. The Westminster Confession and London Baptist Confession, as well as many of these Calvinist confessions, hold to the perfect preservation of scripture, which is a one Bible position.
An orthodox view should be a scriptural view. Butler doesn’t establish any kind of biblical and historical view of the preservation of scripture. Butler writes this:
It is true God calls us to have faith, but our faith is grounded upon objective truth.
What is objective truth? Is textual criticism objective truth? No way, and he doesn’t make that connection. It can’t be made. Scripture is the truth on which bibliological positions stand. Butler takes the view agreed by modern evangelicalism, not based upon scripture. He has not faced a bit of criticism from the evangelicals who interview him. He should sit down for a talk with someone who does not take his position to see how his arguments will stand up.
Most people who use the King James believe that it is an accurate translation of a preserved original language text. Obviously, the King James Version itself has changed since 1611. KJV supporters know that. This indicates that they believe that the preservation of scripture occurs in the Hebrew and Greek text. Butler writes:
The Bible never claims God’s Word is only found in one translation. KJV onlyism is unsupported by the Bible itself.
Maybe that confronts Ruckmanism, but I’ve never heard a single person attempt to defend single-translationism from the Bible. The French, Spanish, Russian, etc. can all have a translation from the same text as the King James Version. Butler knows this, but he makes this claim anyway, and it’s a strawman. It doesn’t help anyone. More than anything it gives fresh meat to evangelical friends in an evangelical bubble. On the other hand, he never lays out what the Bible does claim.
There are varied views on preservation among evangelicals. I don’t know of one modern version supporter, who believes in perfect preservation of scripture. Daniel Wallace doesn’t believe scripture teaches the preservation of scripture and he has many supporters. That is now a very common view. He believes in the preservation of the Word, but not the Words. Butler takes a view that might be the most common for evangelicals. Most evangelicals in the pew don’t know this position, but perhaps the majority of conservative evangelical leaders take the position Butler describes:
Yes, I believe God preserves His Word, but I believe it is in the totality of all the available manuscript evidence, variants and copyist errors included.
Try to find that in historical bibliological literature. You won’t find it. It really is a reactionary position to textual criticism among evangelicals. It isn’t a biblical position. Nowhere does the Bible teach it. It’s very much like what you might read on creation today. Confronted with science, professing Christians invent a day age theory for old earth creationism.
Almost all of what Butler finds are theologians, often unbelieving ones, willing to admit that there are copyist errors, which produce textual variants. He and others act like KJVO don’t know that or don’t believe it happened. The history of God’s preservation of scripture is not the same parchment and ink making its way down through time in a pristine condition. God preserved His Words. This physical copy view is not taught in the Bible and it’s only made up as a straw man to create a faux argument.
When you read Butler’s view in his above quote, look carefully at what he says. First, he says God preserves His Word, not God preserved, completed action, like Jesus said, “It is written,” in the perfect tense. He doesn’t say “Words,” because He would never say that. It’s God’s Word in a very ambiguous sense. Jesus said, my words shall not pass away (Matthew 24:35). Where does the Bible or even history present this “totality of available manuscript evidence” position?
For Butler the text isn’t settled, like the Bible speaks about itself. He doesn’t know what the Words are. He doesn’t know all of the ones by which He is to live by. I would contend he doesn’t even believe the position he espouses. How would he account for new evidence, which is still coming? What does he do with a passage like 1 Samuel 13:1? I’ve never read an evangelical, who takes his position, who believes that we possess a manuscript with the very words of that verse.
What motivated me to write this post was one aspect of Butler’s book and that is his attack on the teaching of preservation in scripture. Among everything that he writes, I want to deal only with Psalm 12:6-7, mainly to show how men like him deal with these preservation texts. He writes:
The one passage that nearly all KJVO advocates use for establishing the promise argument is Psalm 12:6,7. . . . The immediate antecedent for the plural pronoun them is the plural pronoun, words. Thus, it would seem to make sense that we can conclude God has promised to preserve His words in a physical text.
The Hebrew language, however, is sharply different from English in that it has grammatical gender, something not common to English. In Hebrew, the pronouns will match the antecedent nouns in both number and gender. Here in Psalm 12:6, 7, the two thems of verse 7 are masculine in gender and with the second them being singular.
The closest antecedents in our English translation, the two nouns words found in verse 6, are feminine, so they do not match the masculine thems.
Butler goes on to say that “them” refers to the poor and needy back in verse 5 because they’re feminine. Butler’s argument here has been thoroughly debunked. He’s wrong. First, however, there are many verses in the Bible that teach the perfect preservation of every Word of God. Psalm 12:6, 7 are two of many. There is a great chapter on these verses by Thomas Strouse in Thou Shalt Keep Them, our book on the preservation of scripture. I’ve also written a lot on it (here, here, and here).
Here’s the short of it. Repeatedly in the Old Testament, and as a part of Hebrew grammar, a masculine pronoun refers to a feminine Word of God. You see it again and again in Psalm 119, the psalm entirely about the Word of God (verses 111, 129, 152, 167). There are many other examples. You can find this very rule in Gesenius’s Hebrew grammar, which I used in second year Hebrew in graduate school.
The number argument doesn’t work either, which is why the KJV translators translated the pronoun, “them,” the second time. That’s also Hebrew grammar. It is very common after a plural pronoun for a singular to follow in order to particularize every individual in the group. A collective plural is suggested by the singular. This is also why the NKJV translators, who are not KJVO, translated it “them.”
The Hebrew grammar says just the opposite of what Butler writes. Critical text and modern version men continue to trot out this argument, when they should well know that it’s been answered many times. I’ve never had one of them attempt to deal with it, because it is irrefutable. It’s why many, many preachers and theologians through the centuries, including Jewish scholars, have said that “them” in verse seven refers to God’s “words” in verse six. The gender disagreement argument is a moot point. Without gender, the rule reverts back to proximity, and “words” is the closest antecedent to “them.”
Either Butler didn’t know the gender disagreement argument or he assumed that his readers wouldn’t know any better. Knowing the Hebrew grammar and reading what he wrote, it reads like he was just borrowing from the writings of other people. I’ve read this argument from Douglas Kutilek online. He’s been confronted with the Hebrew grammar and he’s never answered me or anyone else on it. He does not know what he’s talking about.
So much more could be said in review of Fred Butler’s book, but rest assured that God has preserved every one of His Words in the language in which He inspired them, and made them available for every generation of believers. The King James Version is an accurate translation of those Words.
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