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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 50^th 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 17^th 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 50^th 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).

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