Scripture -- the Doctrine of Preservation

I suppose we have all seen a quote comparable to the following: The Bible is God’s Word to us. It was written by human authors, under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is the supreme source of truth for Christian beliefs and living. Because it is inspired by God, it has salvation for its end and is truth without any mixture of error.

While I would agree with this statement, one can clearly see the Doctrine of Preservation is missing. Does the Scripture support the teaching of Preservation? Clearly it does. This post will examine what the Bible has to say about this important doctrine.

Would God inspire a text and then allow it to become lost?

This is a fair and good question. God is sovereign and able to watch over His Word – i.e. preserve it forever. The Bible actually has much to say about this and we will examine several clear passages that teach this doctrine. Many will say they believe that God gave the original Scriptures and they were divinely inspired by God. That statement is perceived to be a statement of faith, but sadly it is a statement of unbelief if we don’t couple it with preservation.

If God did inspire a text, would He not preserve it?

Again, this is a question that must be asked. This post will attempt to examine the doctrine of preservation. The New Testament was written in Greek and the Old Testament was recorded primarily in Hebrew with the exception of a portion of Daniel written in Aramaic. For all of the scholarship around this issue, it might be of interest to the reader to know there are no original manuscripts of the Bible today. The Old Testament scribes destroyed the scroll upon which Scripture was written as they became worn from much use. When they copied a new Scripture or graphe, the old text was destroyed. The point is we possess no “original” manuscripts. The same is true regarding the New Testament texts. None of the ‘autographs’ the apostles wrote have been preserved.

Could we expect counterfeits of the originals to be in circulation?

According to the Bible in Genesis 3:1, Bible revision efforts can be found back in the Garden of Eden with Satan in questioning God’s word when he said, “Yea, has God said?” An attack of God’s Word began back in the beginning of recorded history and it continues to this day. 2 Cr 2:17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

So again we ask, has God not preserved His Word – the original text – although not the original piece of paper or vellum on which it may have been written? Let’s examine the following passage in II Timothy 3:14-17: But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned [them];And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Here God tells us His purposes in giving the Scriptures:

• For doctrine
• For reproof
• For correction
• For instruction in righteousness

We must ask ourselves again; do we really believe God allowed original Scripture to become lost after giving them? If He did, how could He use them to accomplish these purposes? By reviewing the passage in II Timothy 3:15, we see no reference to the “original” Scriptures. In verse Paul tells Timothy, “from a child you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation.” Paul is obviously not speaking of the “original” New Testament Scripture. Second Timothy was penned about A.D. 65. Further, Timothy was old enough to join Paul and Silas c. 53 A.D. (Acts 16:1-4). So, when Timothy was a child, there was no New Testament collection of Scripture anywhere. Nor was Paul speaking of the “originals” of the Old Testament for there was not an original Old Testament piece of paper or vellum extant at that time. Therefore, these are the verses upon which many of us base our faith and say we believe in the “originals.” Yet these verses are not speaking of the original manuscripts.

So can we have faith and confidence that the copies are also inspired? The Bible clearly teaches that faithful copies of the originals are also inspired. The word “Scripture” in II Timothy 3:16-17 is translated from the Greek word “graphe.” The word graphe occurs 51 times in the Greek New Testament and at every occurrence it means “Scripture” – in fact, it usually refers to the Old Testament text. We have the Holy Writ testifying that faithful copies of the originals are themselves inspired.

It simply comes down to a promise given by God – that He would preserve the text which He gave us. Timothy never saw an original when he was a child of either the Old or New Testament, yet in verse 16 God says that what Timothy learned as a child was given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Now if God were talking about something which had been lost and/or is no longer true and accurate, why did He give verse 17?

The following verses clearly teach God’s promises of both giving and protecting His Word.

Jer 1:12 Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

Mar 13:31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

Mar 8:38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

1Pe 1:25a But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.

Isa 40:8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Psa 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

Jhn 10:35b and the scripture cannot be broken;

Psa 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.

In closing, the Scriptures demonstrate that faith in the preservation of the text is a basic Bible doctrine. The context of these many promises is not that God’s Word is to be preserved in a jar somewhere in a cave or desert, lost for hundreds of years waiting to be found and restored to the believing remnant of the Church. The context is very clear in II Timothy 3:16-17 that the inspired Word was given by God as a deposit to the Body of Christ “that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” Therefore for God to accomplish this stated purpose for His having given us His Word – it must remain accessible to the disciples of the Lord Jesus through time.

My thanks and gratitude to Dr. Floyd Jones and his book Which Version is the Bible? Most of this post is closely adapted and quoted from his book, pages 4-10.

In Him,

Eye

Free to Decide: Confessions of a Former Calvinist

An informative and interesting testimony worth a read and a ponder...
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href="http://www.bethelbentonville.org/articles/060421_confessions-of-a-former-calvinist.htm"


by Brandon Cox

The story is told of a group of people who disagreed over the issue of predestination so they divided themselves into two separate camps. One camp existed for the predestinarians and another for those who emphasized the free will of man. A single undecided man was stranded in between. Since he wasn’t sure what to do, he went and tried to join the predestinarian camp. They refused to allow his entrance, saying, “You can’t be here if you choose to be here, you must be called.” So in concession, he made his way to the free will camp. They too, rejected the poor man, stating, “You can’t be here if you were sent, you must choose to be here of your own free will.”

I have often felt like that man in my own struggle to understand and reconcile God’s sovereignty and man’s free agency. My own struggle began shortly after my surrender to the gospel ministry, as I entered the student body at Central Baptist College in Conway, Arkansas. Calvinism and the “doctrines of grace” were a constant source of controversy among the overzealous ministerial students. We would often stay up until the wee hours of the mourning in our dorm rooms, debating the eternal decrees of the Almighty. Our pursuit was not so much to understand the God who had saved us, but rather to have a keen grasp on our theology, and if I might admit, to entertain ourselves by feeling intellectually astute.

My pursuit of an understanding continued as I devoured the writings of John Calvin, Lorraine Boettner, and R. C. Sproul. John Piper’s popularity had not yet reached our small school in central Arkansas but we were quite familiar with the scholarly perspective of Dr. John MacArthur. (May I make an aside to say that these are godly men who have done much good for the cause of biblical inerrancy and other areas of conservative theology.) I was particularly drawn to the well-known Reformed writers because of the great appeal of their emphasis on the “five solas:” (in English only…) the Scriptures alone teach us salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone to the glory of God alone. I affirm these solas to this day, but I no longer believe them to be the product of the Reformation, but rather the natural conclusion of a right exegesis of the Bible. Thankfully the Reformers simply stumbled onto truths held by the ancients, and by ancestral Baptists throughout their centuries of underground faith as well.

Only a few years ago, I would have proudly labeled myself a Calvinist and I had my arguments in tact to defend my position. I found myself teaching these truths in my pulpit ministry, unwilling to give a universal invitation to anyone who would want to be saved. Rather I qualified my invitations with such phrases as, “If God is dealing with you, then come…” My intent was to avoid “casting my pearls before swine.” I had two basic approaches to defending my incorrect theology. One approach was to run to the familiar proof texts such as Ephesians 1:3-14, John 6:43-46, and Romans 8:28-30. The other was to twist my opponents’ words using human logic. In fact, my first confession would be that Calvinism had a strong appeal to my own appetite for that which was intellectually challenging.

That Calvinism is a logical system cannot be denied. If in fact all are totally depraved and unable to respond to God, then God must unconditionally elect some to believe. If He elects some, yet they cannot believe on their own, then He must draw them and give them faith. Further, if He draws them and gives them faith, then they surely could not be lost, so His grace must be irresistible. And if only some will be elected, drawn, and saved, then Jesus must have died only for the elect, else His blood would have been spilled in vain and the non-elect would, in their own damnation, cause God to judge their sin twice. The perseverance of the saints must be a right doctrine if God’s sovereignty in electing lines up with His wisdom of the future lifestyle of the elect. So it all made sense to me. Being able to state the doctrines of grace and convince others of their truthfulness fed my own ego and gave me the feeling of being in the ranks of the world’s great theological thinkers. But what I felt was Calvinism’s great strength (the fact that it was ultimately logical to the intellectual person) turned out to be Calvinism’s great weakness.

The Bible is full of paradoxes. Believers are alive and dead at the same time. We are servants and sons. We are saints and sinners. We are chosen, and free! None of these paradoxes are logical. None of them make any human sense but when we see the Scriptures through a heart of faith, they seem sensible to us after all. Calvinism ultimately creates a mindset that blocks out the possibility of man having anything at all to do with his own salvation. Indeed, man cannot purchase it with his good works, nor can he suffer for its penalty and be freed from sin’s curse. Nonetheless, the Scriptures plainly record the necessity that man, in his divinely granted freedom, choose Christ of his own volition. The logic of Calvinism sees only the sensible side of God’s sovereignty but can never reconcile it with man’s freedom to act in faith.

Beyond the appeal of the logic of Calvinism was the second draw upon my soul… the ability to line up with the great theological thinkers of my day. The popularity of Calvinism is growing, thanks to the growing popularity of some of its great advocates such as R. Albert Mohler, John Piper, and John MacArthur. As I mentioned before, I believe these to be godly and conservative men of profound intellectual insight and personal character. I so wanted to fit in with the great scholars of my day that I was willing to overlook apparent uncertainties about my theology. In reality, I was taking an apologetic approach to Calvinism within my own heart! I was consistently attempting to convince myself!

The final straw came for me in the summer of 2005 when I purchased and listened to the well-known sermon by Dr. Adrian Rogers entitled Predestined for Hell? Absolutely Not! One of my strongest arguments for Calvinism was my eisogesis of Romans, chapter nine. I listened, dumbfounded, as Dr. Rogers decimated every supporting argument I had given in asserting that God had created people who were forordained to damnation, simply to show forth His justice. Dr. Rogers’ masterful exegesis of this oft-studied passage convinced me to do a thorough re-evaluation of my own theology. Very few Calvinists today would claim to be hyper-Calvinists. In fact, any Calvinist I’ve ever met would always label those a little more extreme than themselves as the “hypers.” Suddenly I was faced with the evidence which proved my own leaning toward a hyper-Calvinist theology.

I began reading all that I could again on the subject of Calvinism, this time from an objective position. Formerly I had sought proof of Calvinism, now I simply wanted God’s answers to my deepest questions. My mind was stirred to re-consider my theological position, but my emotions were wrenched by a question I had subtly ignored when a loved one asked, “what if your little girl (two years of age at the time) isn’t chosen, but instead was created simply to be damned forever in hell?” Though an emotional reaction is never the basis for a solid affirmation of truth, I would beg the same question of any Calvinistic reader… what if all of your loved ones were simply “fitted for destruction?”

Dave Hunt reflects my final conclusion in this way, “…the ultimate aim of Calvinism… is to prove that God does not love everyone, is not merciful to all, and is pleased to damn billions. If that is the God of the Bible, Calvinism is true. If that is not the God of the Bible, who ‘is love’ (1 John 4:8, emphasis added), Calvinism is false…”

My confessions as a former Calvinist could be summed up in this way: I twisted various passages of Scripture so that I might have a system of theology that appealed to my intellectual ego, could reconcile itself with my own logic, and which would include me in a great class of Christian scholars, past and present. None of these motivations are glorifying to God, neither are they the motivations placed before us in Scripture.

Having recanted my affirmation of Calvinism, let me affirm my believe in a sovereign God who is always in control, but Who never forces or coerces converts to His Son. I believe in a God who sent His only Son to the cross so that anyone who believed on Him might be saved. I believe in a God whose knowledge is truly “past finding out” and who cannot be defined by any system of theology that is not firmly rooted in Scripture. Put simply, there is no acrostic that will summarize God. Sixty-six books, written over a span of a century and a half, at least seven genres of literature and multiple eras of God’s relating Himself in different ways to mankind were required to produce a single document that could even begin to tell of the mysteries of God’s deity and person. Calvinism is a partial explanation of God’s ways, presenting to us the sovereign God, divorced from His limitless love and His universal provision for the sins of all of His lost creatures. Let the reader beware that impenitence is damning, but let the reader behold the “great love wherewith He hath loved us.” To quote the Author of all theological truth, “And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:39-40)

Adrian Rogers, in his rebuttal of extreme predestination, stated it so well, “If you want mercy, you may have it.” I would urge you to fling yourself upon the foot of the cross where Jesus died and claim His mercy, receive His forgiveness, and take hold of the promise of a future resurrection to be with Jesus forever. For the Scriptures conclude with this great thought… “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17)