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GOD'S SPECIAL PROVIDENTIAL CARE OF THE TEXT OF SCRIPTURE
Timothy Tow
Deuteronomy 5:1-29; 9:10-21; 10:1-5
There are two accounts
recorded by Moses on the giving of the Ten Commandments. The first is in
Exodus 19:16-21:26; 31:18-32:28; 34:1-4. The second is recorded in
Deuteronomy 5:1-29; 9:10-21; 10:1-5. Deuteronomy means second giving of
the Law. Deuteronomy is Moses’ instruction to the children of Israel at
the end of his life and of what greater importance is the giving of the
Ten Commandments? For brevity, I have chosen to discuss from Deuteronomy
and not Exodus.
The delivery of the Ten
Commandments was made on the top of Mount Sinai, over 7,000 feet above sea
level. The whole process took forty days and forty nights, amidst thunder
and lightning, fire and smoke, the blowing of trumpet and the voice of
Almighty God speaking to men. Then God wrote the sentences of the Ten
Commandments with His own finger over the two tablets, front and back. In
the climax of the forty days and nights, rebellion to God’s promulgation
of the Ten Commandments arose from the ground. The people had made a
golden calf to substitute for Jehovah saying this was their god, whereupon
Moses’ wrath was kindled. When he was confronted by this golden calf, he
became so angry that he threw the two tablets of law to the ground.
Symbolically, God’s Commandments were broken. The golden calf the children
of Israel had made was ground into fine powder and mixed with water for
Israel to drink, which was their punishment. Can puny man rebel against
God’s Word with impunity?
To re-establish the giving
of the Law, God commanded Moses to hew another two tablets of stone and
bring them with him back to the mountain top. “And he wrote on the tables,
according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake
unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the
assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me. And I turned myself and came
down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and
there they be, as the LORD commanded me” (Deuteronomy 10:4-5).
The Ark of the Covenant is
the only holy furniture kept inside the Holy of Holies. God’s sacred
commandments, intact and written on both sides of the two tablets so
nothing can be added and nothing can be subtracted, were kept secure from
any human intrusion. “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven”
(Psalm 119:89).
The restoration of the two
tables is to show that heaven and earth shall pass away, but His words
shall not pass away. Not one letter or even the cross of a ‘t,’ and the
dot of an ‘i.’ “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” Jesus says, “The
scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
To doubly confirm that
heaven and earth shall pass away but God’s words shall not pass away, we
have the record in Jeremiah 36 of how the prophet asked his secretary
Baruch to write words of condemnation against the House of Judah and
caused them to be read to Judah. When the roll Jeremiah dictated to Baruch
was read before Jehoiakim, king of Judah, he cut it up and burned it
wholly in the fire. Did God’s Word become ashes? God told Jeremiah to
repeat His Words to be written by Baruch again and add more words for the
punishment of King Jehoiakim. Can puny man rebel against God’s Word with
impunity?
This leads us to the
doctrine of God’s special providential care of the text of Scripture. This
is affirmed by the Westminster Confession. It states that the Scripture is
“kept pure in all ages.” This is doubly attested by David in Psalm 12:6-7,
“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of
earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt
preserve them from this generation for ever.” The doctrine of the special
providential care of the text of Scripture, however, is denied by even
some fundamentalist scholars. Dr. Carl McIntire has this commentary to
make: “What is interesting about all this is that, in talking about the
mighty acts of God and trying to make out of our God a great and powerful
God, they have produced for us a God who is unable to give us a record
that is true! They believe in the infallibility and inerrancy only in the
autographs, but not in the subsequent copies.”
We believe the Textus
Receptus (Received Text) upon which the KJV is based, is preserved intact
for the church so that we can say we have the Word of God in our hands.
But those versions that are based on Westcott and Hort who supplant with
their corrupt text have made changes and deletions in 9,900 places in the
New International Version (NIV). The text underlying NIV is not as the
Westminster Confession says, “Kept pure in all ages.” God has preserved
for us a pure Bible as He preserved the Ten Commandments for us to this
day. Let me say it again, it is the Textus Receptus on which the KJV is
based.
Rev Dr Timothy Tow is the pastor of True Life Bible-Presbyterian Church
and the principal of Far Eastern Bible College.
- Published in
Bible Witness, Vol 2 Issue 4 (October - December 2002)
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