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THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES (ICCC)
AND THE KING JAMES BIBLE
Jeffrey Khoo
The Far Eastern Bible College believes in the verbal inspiration of the
Holy Scriptures—every word of Scripture is theopneustos, God-breathed.
“All Scripture is inspired of God and is profitable . . .” (2 Tim 3:16,
KJV). We oppose the English Revised Version (RV) of Westcott and Hort (and
all like versions) which rendered 2 Tim 3:16 thus, “Every Scripture
inspired of God is also profitable . . . .” By placing the copula “is”
after the words, “inspired of God,” instead of before it as in the KJV,
the RV has made 2 Tim 3:16 to mean that certain parts of Scripture are not
inspired of God; only those portions that are inspired are profitable. The KJV placed the copula “is” right after “All Scripture.” This leaves no
ambiguity whatsoever that all of Scripture, to its jot and tittle, is
inspired of God.
The Far Eastern Bible College rejects and opposes all modern versions like
the New International Version (NIV) that are a result of the dynamic
equivalence method of translation which licentiously add to, subtract
from, and manipulate the Scriptures, and those that cast doubt, and/or
omit verses based on corrupted readings of the Westcott and Hort Text. We
fully concur with the recently passed Bible Resolution of the
International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC) which met at its 50th
Anniversary in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 11-14, 1998. The Bible
Resolution reads,
WHEREAS despite the fact that there are over 150 so-called “versions” of
the Bible extant around the world today, there have been no new
discoveries of ancient texts to legitimize this plethora of modern
“versions” pouring off the presses and being sold as the “latest” Bible,
and
WHEREAS a single exception to this has been the discovery of the
now-famous Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940’s in caves on the Judean mountain
range and contained in clay jars with the texts written on leather and
papyrus, and
WHEREAS fragments of all the books of the Hebrew Bible (except Esther)
confirm almost to the letter the accuracy of the Authorized King James
Version of the Old Testament, and
WHEREAS most of the modern versions are based upon the discredited and
perverted Westcott and Hort transcription and not on the Textus Receptus
(The Received Text) attested to by scholars for over 300 years, from which
the Authorized King James Version was translated by the greatest
theologians and textual critics of 17th Century England, who were academic
experts, indeed, in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and
WHEREAS self-styled theologians who reject the inerrancy and inspiration
of the Scriptures have gone so far as to make a looseleaf notebook and
tear out those passages they do not accept, even organizing what they
designate as “Jesus Seminars” across the United States in which they
declare that Jesus never did and said the things recorded in the four
Gospels; and that the Gospel of John is the worst and is 90 percent
fiction, and the obedient secular press quotes them from coast-to-coast,
and
WHEREAS this same KING JAMES VERSION has been used around the world by an
overwhelming majority of Christian Clergymen, Evangelists, Bible Teachers,
Missionaries and Youth Leaders to bring millions of people to have a
saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ for more than three centuries,
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED, that the International Council of Christian
Churches, assembled in the historic English Reformed Church in Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, observing its 50th Anniversary, August 11-15, 1998, urge
all Bible-believing churches worldwide to use only the Authorized KING
JAMES VERSION in their services and in their teaching ministry, and warn
the followers of Christ against these innumerable “new” bibles which are
not translations at all, but revisions conforming to the personal bias and
views of those who have originated them and who are profiting by
commercial sales of such.
Is there any who calls himself a fundamentalist that will scoff at this
resolution? There are indeed “fundamentalists” who simply pay lip-service
to the doctrine of biblical inspiration and preservation. In the same
breath they say yes and no to the Word of God they claim to uphold: “Yes
to the KJV; No to the Textus Receptus.” Dr Carl McIntire, President of the
ICCC did well to quote J Gresham Machen in the January 17, 1957 issue of
the Christian Beacon, “The worst sin today is to say that you agree with
the Christian faith and believe in the Bible, but then make common cause
with those who deny the basic facts of Christianity. Never was it more
obviously true that he that is not with Christ is against Him.” How can
those who claim to believe in a verbally inspired Bible support Westcott
and Hort—the Bible and Christ denying progenitors of our modern English
versions? Westcott and Hort were modernists and Mariolators, supporters of
Freud and Darwin. They applied the scissors to the traditional and
preserved Greek Text of God’s Word used and accepted by God’s people down
through the ages. These unregenerate duo hoodwinked the Church into
accepting their mutilated text, save Dean J W Burgon who in righteous
indignation rose to debunk Westcott and Hort in his masterly 600-page
treatise—The Revision Revised.
Therefore, fundamentalists who continue to promote the Westcott-Hort Greek
text which is now renamed “Eclectic,” and all the corrupt English “Bibles”
that flood the Christian market are not fighting against Satan, but
against Christ. I repeat the words of Machen, “The worst sin today is to
say that you agree with the Christian Faith and believe in the Bible [viz,
the KJV], but make common cause with those [viz, Westcott and Hort] who
deny the basic facts of Christianity. Never was it more obviously true
that he that is not with Christ is against Him.”
“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the LORD shall
lift up a standard against him” (Isa 59:17). “For we can do nothing
against the truth, but for the truth” (2 Cor 13:8). “Nevertheless the
foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them
that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart
from iniquity” (2 Tim 2:19).
- Published in
The Burning Bush,
Volume 5 Number
1 (January 1999)
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