Psalms 119:88
Psalms 119:88 says, “Psa 119:88 Quicken me after thy lovingkindness;
so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.”
The word quicken means
to make alive. Life comes from God gives us life because he loves us. But there
is something we need to understand and that is that all men are sinners and one
of the consequences of sin is physical and spiritual death. If you don’t have
Christ you don’t have spiritual life. Sin also explains the reason men grow old
and die. It did not happen before sin entered the world. But God has a solution
the forgiveness of sins in Jesus. Remember Jesus died but He also rose from the
grave. Those who trust in Him are quickened. They are made alive. Spiritually
you receive life immediately and also one day in God’s time according to God’s
plan and God’s promise you will receive a perfect glorified body.
Now this gift of eternal life that is given
through Christ should be a reason and a motivation for a person to do what is
right to keep and to obey the word of God. If it does not motivate you as a
Christian then that means you don’t appreciate what God has done for you. In
lovingkindness God gives us life and that makes us want to serve Him to do what
is right.
Psalms 119:89 says, “Psa
119:89 LAMED.
For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.”
Now we come to a change in topic from talking
about being giving life and doing what is right to the preservation of God’s
Word. The two truths are actually connected. After all if God’s word is
preserved then its easy to read and to exactly what God expects of you in terms of right and
wrong. If God’s word is not preserved how do you know
what has been changed, or altered, or lost in the books and chapters of the
bible and that would included passages that deal with right and wrong, God’s
commandments. So it is an important issue.
Now there are only two views a person can hold.
1. God’s word is perfectly preserved and without error. 2. God’s Word is not
preserved and therefore has errors in it.
In studying the issue of the preservation of
God’s word there are 2 things to consider: 1. What’
God’s Word says and 2 the evidence and when I say evidence I mean the
historical and archeological evidence.
This topic has a lot of information too it. But
I’m going to try to make it as simple as possible. First let’s look at what
God’s Word says.
Psalms 119:89 says, “Psa
119:89 LAMED.
For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.”
The word settled is a word that can be translated
pillar. It also means established, standing, appointed. So this verse makes it
clear that God’s Word is in heaven. It’s there it’s not going away, man is not
corrupting it, altering it, changing it, destroying it.
But what about on the earth is God’s Word
preserved on the earth? Psalms 12:6-7 says, “Psa 12:6 The words of the
LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,
purified seven times. Psa 12:7 Thou shalt
keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”
Which generation is being talked about here? Is
talking about a specific generation the generation of men that were on the
earth when those words were written or is it talking about simply which ever
generation is the present generation? Well if we take the words at face value it
says this generation. It doesn’t say the present generation only. So this
generation is the what ever generation is on the earth
in other words all generations of men and mankind.
How about what Jesus said in the gospels of
Matthew, Mark and Luke. They all have these words worded the same way. Matthew
24:35 says, “Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass
away.” Jesus also promised in Matthew 5:18, “Mat
So I Think the bible makes it very clear that God
has promised to perfectly preserve all His Word without any errors whatsoever.
Now lets look at a story
in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 36:27-28 says, “Jer 36:27 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, after that the king
had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah,
saying, Jer 36:28 Take thee again
another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll,
which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned.”
In this story God gave Jeremiah His Word. It was
written down given to the king and the king destroyed it. So what did God do?
God gave the exact same words again. So this illustrates that an all powerful
God is perfectly and easily capable of preserving His Word. That includes
overcoming stumbling blocks such as scribal errors, printing press errors,
translation errors, the barriers of language, or even people out right trying
to destroy the word. These things are not stumbling blocks or difficulties to
God.
Now lets consider these
verses. Revelation 22:18-19 says, “Rev 22:18 For I testify unto
every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall
add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in
this book: Rev 22:19 And if any man
shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from
the things which are written in this book.”
These verses imply that the word of God was
completed with the book of Revelation. If you add or take away from the book
then you’re attacking the preservation of God’s Word. Now these verses make it
clear God’s Word is complete. So how do you address the issue of other writings
that people claim are part of God’s Word. The answer
is simple they are not part of God’s Word. One issue is some books that are
actually referred to in the bible itself like the book of Jasher for one
example
2 Samuel
In this verse a book is referred to called the book of Jasher. The thing to realize is that the
Bible never says the book of Jasher is part of the word of God. It just
mentions it as a book. Its like the situation of king
Solomon and his hundreds of wives. There mentioned in the bible but the fact
that it is mentioned does not mean God approved of it anymore than mentioned a
book by reference means that it’s the word of God.
Here’s another issue. John
Not everything that Jesus ever said and did when
He was on this earth is recorded in the Bible. In fact we also know that the
apostle Paul wrote other letters to the church’s which we don’t have today. Do
these two issues mean that God’s word is not preserved or that there are words
or books missing from God’s Word. No. It simply means we have the words and
books that God wants us to have. That’s what we have. God has given us exactly
what He wants us to have.
Looking at these verses we can conclude
the Bible makes it very clear God has perfectly preserved His Word without
error.
Here is the thing about preservation, if God’s
word has errors in it how do you know what the errors are? Maybe you think you know but maybe there
is some other text out there some different version that says something
different than any of the texts we already have and it has yet to be
discovered. And that’s where the problem comes in. How do you even know how to
be saved if there are errors in the Bible? You don’t. You don’t know if those
verses that talk about and explain the gospel are accurate? Maybe the originals
said something different how do you know if it’s not
preserved. How do you know the crucifixion even happened? How do you know Jesus
rose from the grave? Maybe those are just stories someone added later? Do you
see? In other words there is no way to know or to believe for certain if there
are errors and if the word of God is not preserved not according to that
philosophy. But the Bible makes the claim that God’s Word is preserved.
Preservation is not its not preservation in the
sense of a mummy that is preserved but still slowly decaying but its
preservation in the sense of perfect preservation without error.
Preservation does not mean that the old copies of
the word are not going to fall apart from use and the ware of time but it means
that as God had his word copied through the use of scribes and now in modern
times through printing presses God would ensure there would always be accurate
copies made, copies made without errors, that’s preservation.
New copies have to be made because the old ones
get used and worn out.
When it comes to what the Bible say its pretty easy to explain God is God. God is holy God is
all powerful and God is faithful so God always does what He says He’s going to
do. God has clearly promised
to preserve His word and He has done that. Really it’s an issue of faith either
you believe what God says or you don’t. Either you believe that God is faithful
or you think God isn’t faithful.
Just
think about it. What good would it do for God to give His Word to us but not
preserve it. Well it would benefit the prophets and
the apostles who directly who directly received his word and their associates
and the early believers who say and read the original autographs but how would
it benefit the rest of the world?
God
wants people to know the truth. God’s wants people to be saved. God wants
people to have confidence that the truth is true.
So
now I’m going to briefly surmise the facts about the archeological and
historical evidence. First I want to say this, there
is nothing wrong with looking at the evidence and studying the evidence to help
you understand the truth.
Doubting Thomas did this. He wanted to see the resurrected Jesus, the
empty tomb wasn’t enough. He had to put his hand in the nail prints in Jesus
hand thrust his hand in Jesus side where the spear had pierced him and this
helped his faith.
John
20:24-29, “Joh
Jesus didn’t condemn Thomas for wanting to see
evidence. Observing and analyzing the evidence helped Thomas to believe. Of
course those who simply believe are much more blessed Jesus said because faith
please God. But God does allow and encourage us to use critical thinking skills
and to examine the evidence.
The thing about the archeological and historical
evidence is that no matter how much you study it and how much you learn about
it you’re still going to have to ultimately make a decision to either believe
or not believe what God said about preserving HIis word. For several reasons:
1. No matter how much you research you’re not going to know everything. You’re
not going to be able to account for every single scribe and every single time
the Bible was copied or printed that’s just not
possible. We do have a lot of evidence, thousands of ancient manuscripts to
look at and compare but we don’t have every single copy that was ever made or
every bit of information about each scribe and the details of what happened.
Only God knows all that. 2. We don’t have the original autographs and that
means we don’t have the original first copies of the Bible that were written
down. So ultimately we have to take it on faith that the copies say the same
thing as the originals. Even if you had the 2nd copy and not the originals
it would still be a copy wouldn’t have the original to make a comparison as to
whether they were the same, not even if the copy was copied and dated to the
very oldest date possible still its just a copy and so we have to make a
decision to believe or not to believe in Jesus and His promises.
Why do people choose to not believe That God has
preserved His word? I think there are 2 reasons or you could say two kinds of
people. First of all there are those who are influenced and persuaded by the
intellectual arguments of the non believers. But there are also those who
simply don’t believe in Jesus. They don’t have faith in God. Therefore they are
looking for a reason to not believe. You can always find a reason to not
believe, A way to interpret the evidence to try and
make it support your un belief and that’s what they do. That’s where this whole
philosophy of textual criticism came from. It came from people who were
unbelievers. Of course an unbeliever is going to say ah God’s word isn’t
preserved. If it not’s preserved then God isn’t holy because He doesn’t keep His
promises. Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t even a God and so I don’t have
to listen to Him and that means I don’t have to repent of my sins and that
means my sins aren’t even sins and all I can keep enjoying them. That’s whats
really going on.
Now the truth is most people that approach the
issue of the historical and archeological evidence are either going to approach
it believing the Word of God is preserved or believing it has errors. Now one
could argue there are ancient manuscripts where scribes made errors or
alterations and there are manuscripts which have passages missing. Yes there
are. But having a few, a minority of manuscripts in such a circumstance as
compared to a majority of manuscripts which all say the same thing over a period
of thousands of years and in different languages where does the evidence lead
too. If you went by percentages and 95% of the ancient manuscripts all say the
same thing and the other 5% don’t then the conclusion is sometimes human make
mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are done on purpose. But for the most
part the manuscripts agree. So the evidence is in favor of the preservation of
God’s Word. If 95% of the manuscripts did not agree with eachother but only 5%
agreed then the opposite would be true. But the opposite is not true. The
majority of the manuscripts are in agreement with each other the great vast
majority. That’s why it’s called the Majority Text.
Now
heres the way to explain the few texts with errors and passages missing. You have
to realize that not every human being is honest being or a lover of truth or
motivated by impartiality. This explains why we would expect to find some texts
that have been altered and reject by Christians over the past thousands of
years.
The problem we have today is most people hear the
arguments of the textual critics but they don’t hear the arguments of textual
preservation. Now textual criticism is actually a philosophy that came about in
the 1880’s. That’s when the issue came up of these 3 Greek texts which have
their origin in
That’s why I choose to use an English translation
of the bible done by people that I know were true believers and whose translation was influenced by the
belief that God’s Word is without error. Such people were very careful to be as
accurate as possible in doing a word for word translation.
If you choose to use a different translation
that’s up to you but remember most if not all of the modern translations out
there are done by non believers or people who believe God’s word is not
preserved or only partially preserved and has errors in it. Therefore there
going to make changes to it. That’s why I use the King James Bible. Now I
didn’t really say much about ancient Greek and Hebrew texts. I could have. I
could have talked about all the codexs, which is a term used for ancient manuscripts and
things like the dead sea scrolls but there’s plenty of videos out there on you
tube about that stuff. It’s very easy to research.
Psalms 119:89 says, “Psa
119:89 LAMED.
For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.”
It really
comes down to faith. Either you believe in Jesus or your do not. Now if you do
not have faith in Christ I encourage you to put your faith in Christ today.
Today is the day of salvation. Christ died for your sins, rose from the grave
defeating death and Jesus Christ wants to forgive you and give you eternal
life.
___________________________________________________
Copyright; 2017 by Bruce
Creech
All Rights Reserved