Rejecting the Doctrine of
the Perfect Preservation of the Bible will lead to many severe spiritual dangers.
It will undermine the very foundation of the Christian faith. The
following are the dangerous outcomes of not believing in the Perfect
Preservation of the Bible.
If we reject the Perfect
Preservation of the Bible, then we concede that:
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1. |
We don’t have the inspired Word of God intact, as
the words of the originals are not kept pure (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16).
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2. |
We don’t have an absolutely infallible, inerrant
Word of God, even though the Lord promises a perfect Word of God forever
(cf. Psalm 19:7-9).
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3. |
God is unfaithful in keeping His repeated promise
that He will preserve His Word forever (cf. Psalm 12:6-7; Psalm 111:7-8;
Psalm 119:89, 152, 160).
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4. |
Jesus’ promises, such as, “my words
shall not pass away,” are unreliable (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke
21:33).
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5. |
Jesus did not mean what He said, because the Bible
is not preserved as He uttered - “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled”
(Matthew 5:18; cf. Luke 16:17).
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6. |
God was so incapacitated by the errors of man and
dark events of history that He failed to keep His promises concerning the
Preservation of His Word. (It also casts doubt on God’s sovereignty,
providence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.)
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7. |
The faith of the Old Testament prophets and saints
that God’s Word will be kept intact forever is a false faith. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for
ever” (Isaiah 40:8). “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever:
the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:9).
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8. |
The affirmation of the apostles of Christ and the
New Testament writers that God’s Word will be kept intact forever is
false. (Matthew, Mark and Luke quoted Jesus’ affirmation of the
Preservation of God’s Word, cf. 1 Peter 1:25).
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9. |
Our forefathers’ faith that the Word of God “by His
singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages” is not acceptable
(Westminster Confession of Faith I. VIII).
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10. |
Anyone can question the authenticity and authority
of the words in the Bible (cf. John 17:17).
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11. |
Some parts of the Bible must be subjected to the
“scholarly opinion” of certain individuals. When those intellectuals point
to us where the Bible is allegedly wrong, we should believe them more than
the Bible itself (cf. Matthew 5:17-19).
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12. |
It is wrong to have the
presupposition that believers have an absolutely trustworthy, perfect
Bible (cf. Psalm 18:30; Psalm 111:7-8; Psalm 119:128). |
Denying the
Perfect Preservation of the Bible will harm and hurt the Church. It will
open the door for anyone to criticise the text of the Bible according to
his personal thinking or opinion. This will further lead to doubting the
absolute accuracy and authority of the Bible. Thus the very foundation of
the church, the absolute sufficiency, trustworthiness and authority of the
Bible will be weakened and destroyed. If we preachers do not have a
perfectly preserved Bible, what assurance can the hearers have in our
preaching of the Word? If we do not have a perfectly preserved Bible, our
preaching is vain.
