Response
to EACA on VPP
Joshua Lim
and Philip Tang
1. Brief Introduction to the VPP situation in
Singapore.
In the
early 2000 Dr. Jeffrey Khoo and members of the FEBC wrote a series of articles
in which they asserted the perfection[1] of the
KJV. They further argued that if God were all-powerful, He would not only
preserve the physical words of Scripture in the extant manuscripts but would
give His people a physical copy of the
Old and New Testament identical in content to the Original autographic text.
Unless God does this, argued Khoo, God would not be omnipotent. Khoo identified
the Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek texts immediately underlying the KJV to be the text.
2.
How God preserved the physical words of Scripture according to Khoo.
Khoo
published two articles explaining clearly how God preserved the physical words
of Scripture.
The
“providential” preservation of Scriptures is understood as God’s special and
not general providence. Special providence or providential extraordinaria speaks
of God’s miraculous intervention in
the events of history and in the affairs of mankind in fulfilment of
His sovereign will for the sake of His elect and to the glory of His Name. The
divine preservation of the Canon (books) and Text (words) of Scripture comes
under God’s
special
providence[2].
(emphasis by authors)
Could God have restored for His Church
all of His inspired and preserved words in the days of the Reformation? As the all-powerful God, He certainly could, and by faith we
believe He surely did. Just as He restored the Old Covenant words of His
Decalogue through His servant Moses (Exod 19:16-21:26, 31:18-32:28, 34:1-4;
Deut 5:1-29, 9:20-21, 10:1-5), and all His words in the scroll which
Jehoiakim cut up and burned (Jer 36:1-32), so we believe the Lord has similarly
done for His New Testament words which have been kept pure in the Traditional
and Majority manuscripts and are now found in the Printed Text of the
Protestant Reformation—the time-tested and time-honoured Textus Receptus
underlying the KJV. FEBC simply does not see the need for any kind of textual
critical work today[3]. (emphasis by authors)
Firstly,
Khoo asserted that the physical words of Scripture was preserved by ‘God’s miraculous intervention in the events of history’ and then he explained how God ‘preserved’ the physical
words during the time of the KJV translators − ‘just as He restored the
Old Covenant words of His Decalogue through His servant Moses’ .
A
reference to Exodus 34:1,28 (which Khoo made) reads,
“And the
LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I
will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables,
which thou didst break… And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant,
the ten commandments.
The
biblical record has it that God called Moses and spoke to him. Khoo, by equating the event at Mount Sinai
with that of the KJV translators, implies that God spoke to the KJV translators
when they were translating the Bible into English.
Truly,
Khoo is not speaking about the preservation of the physical words of Scripture
but rather a re-inspiration or restoration(similar to that during
Moses’ time) of the biblical texts
underlying the KJV.
Only
cults of Christianity such as the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses make similar
claims about new prophesies and post canonical inspirations. It is a cardinal
doctrine in Reformed Christianity that the events experienced by Moses and
Jeremiah have ceased after the close of the Canon and the passing away of the
Apostles.
3. Khoo and FEBC faculty members incessantly
make unfounded claims that ICCC subscribes to VPP.
Many of the articles (by Khoo and FEBC faculty members) in the Burning
Bush make references to the ICCC, implying that ICCC upholds Khoo’s new theory
of preservation by re-inspiration.
In July 2008, Khoo made the most extravagant claim regarding the ICCC in
his article, ‘Kicking Against The
Pricks: The SCCC Contradicts The ICCC On VPP’ when he equated the stand of ICCC
with VPP, saying,
“This is
what VPP affirms—the Hebrew/Aramaic words of the Masoretic Text, and the Greek
words of the Textus Receptus are the very inspired
and preserved words of God, and the Authorised or King James Version (AV/KJV)
is a faithful translation of those divinely inspired and preserved original
language words.”
The word ‘inspired’ carries with it very specific meaning for Khoo. It
meant that the KJV translators were doing what Moses did at Mount Sinai but in
the year 1611.
In the Burning Bush, July 2007, Jeffrey Khoo wrote[4]
about his trip to Nairobi to speak at the Bible
College of East Africa (BCEA). Khoo seized on the opportunity to propagate VPP.
He wrote,
“I preached
a sermon on the need to lay right and solid foundations which are Christ and
His Word (Ps 11:3, Eph 2:20), forever infallible and inerrant on the perfect
preservation of the inspired words of the Holy Word…on the perfect preservation
of the inspired words of the Holy Scriptures.”
Khoo goes half-way round the world to sow seeds of discord[5]
among Christians who do not subscribe to his theory of preservation by
re-inspiration.
The B-P Christian community in Singapore who does not subscribe to the
preservation by re-inspiration (VPP) of Khoo and the FEBC tried their best to
keep the peace of the Church for the sake of Jesus Christ, even though they
were accused by Khoo as liberals, denying inerrancy of the Bible, and all sorts
of name-calling. However, if a lie is repeated often enough people will tend to
believe it. That is why our joint-statement on Khoo’s article “ On VPP: Kicking
Against The Pricks” was written to refute the misrepresentations of Khoo’s
article. The joint-statement was not an attack on Khoo as claimed by the EACA. We
merely described Khoo as “confused in his thinking.”
4. Answering “East African
Christian Alliance speaks on VPP”
On behalf of the EACA, Bishop R.M. Kivai wrote as
follows:
a)
Let it be clear that
the onslaught against his [Jeffrey Khoo] stand on V.P.P. has no biblical basis…
Our reply: The question of the preservation of Scripture
is not an issue. (The position of orthodox evangelical Christians has always
been that God has providentially preserved His words in the extant
manuscripts.) As was demonstrated from the articles written by Khoo (and the
FEBC), the “preservation” of VPP was described as being similar to Moses when
God spoke to Moses and the ten commandments were rewritten on the stone
tablets. Obviously, when Khoo equates what the KJV translators did in 1611 to
that of what Moses did in Mount Sinai, one begins to question Jeffrey Khoo’s
orthodoxy and its attending beliefs.
In
the tenets of the “VPP of Scriptures”, Khoo asserts that David Waite is the
person who is able to recognise what the perfect Bible is. (Refer to Appendix
A, point 6). This is the most startling dogma of VPP. What gives Waite, a mere
man, the ability to tell the difference between the perfect Bible and not so
perfect one? Do we need Waite to tell us what is or is not the word of God? Has
David Waite replaced the Holy Spirit in bringing God’s truth to believers? This makes the theory of VPP an affront to
the plain teachings of Holy Scripture.
The
Apostle John writing to Christians on the work of the Holy Spirit said:
“But
ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things…But the anointing
which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man
teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth,
and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (1 John2:20,27)
b)
Founding President of the ICCC, Dr Carl McIntire, believed the Bible to
be 100% perfect without any mistake, and that Psalm 12:6-7 teaches the VPP of
the Holy Scriptures.
Our reply: There is no doubt that the
Bible is 100% perfect and without any mistakes or errors. We are in complete
agreement with that statement.
That
Dr. Carl McIntyre is a founding member of the ICCC and its 1st
president gains our utmost respect for the man. However, we disagree that Psalm
12:7 teaches the preservation of God’s words. Psalm 12:7 refers to the
preservation of God’s people. This we say with great confidence because the KJV
translators in their 1611 version have marginal notes for Psalm 12:7. Refer to
Appendix B. We believe the KJV translators to be great scholars and do not
doubt their knowledge of Hebrew.
c) It is never right to
confuse by our scholastic jargon, the mind of a layman who simply believes the
Bible to be God's infallible word.
Our reply: We are in complete agreement
with you. It is for this very reason that we have diligently avoided
confronting Khoo and the FEBC who have not let up on their assault on non-VPP,
B-P churches in Singapore. The situation in the B-P churches was one of chaos
and confusion[6] in the congregations when
Khoo and the FEBC vigorously promoted without due regard to the spiritual
condition of the lay people.
d)
Original languages versus originals [autographs] are two totally
different concepts. This is a blatant lie! What is their intention of changing
these words?
Our reply: It is good that this
has been brought up. This misunderstanding by the EACA can be resolved if the
doctrinal statement of the ICCC is examined in its proper context. Article II therein
reads:
“Among
other equally Biblical truths, we believe and maintain the following
a.
The plenary Divine inspiration of the Scriptures in the original languages, their consequent inerrancy and infallibility,
and, as the word of God, the supreme and final authority in faith and life;”
The question that comes to mind is -- what is the intended
meaning of the author of the Article
II(a)? It is common knowledge that the original
languages are Hebrew/Aramaic for the OT and Greek for the NT. However when
the sentence is read in its context, “…we
believe and maintain (the following) the plenary Divine inspiration of the
Scriptures in the original languages,...”,
it is obvious that the author of Article II (a) is saying that the ICCC subscribes to
the doctrine of the verbal plenary
inspiration of Scriptures[7].
The other possible, but unlikely, meaning is that
extant copies of the manuscripts in Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek are Divinely
inspired. This would mean that each time a Greek NT or Hebrew/Aramaic
manuscript is copied the Holy Spirit would keep the copyists from making
errors. Such a doctrine is totally
foreign to reformed Christianity.
Louis Berkhof, a distinguished systematic theologian,
writing on the doctrine of inspiration, remarked:
“
…the doctrine of inspiration, as set forth in the preceding pages, applies only
to the autographs (the original writings of the Biblical authors)[8]…”
Therefore,
writing the word “autographs”
within square brackets in the
ICCC’s statement
on "Believing the Holy Scriptures of the originals [autographs]
to be fully inspired with its words and genders and being complete as God's
revelation to man without error" is
not a blatant lie but an explanation
that the ‘originals’ refer to the autographs.
5. Conclusion.
Khoo and the FEBC have written very clearly that their theory of
‘preservation’ i.e. VPP differs from what the traditional reformed Christianity
understands on the preservation of Scriptures. Theirs is a preservation by
re-inspiration.
It is not only the SCCC that rejects VPP. Affiliated bodies to the ICCC
such as the Independent Board for
Presbyterian Foreign Missions (founded by fundamentalists, Carl McIntire and J.
Gresham Machen, has categorically rejected VPP in their Resolution of Bible Inspiration[9].
APPENDIX A
The Far Eastern Bible College upholds the VPP of Scripture and
believes in the following tenets:
(1)
God has supernaturally preserved each and every one of His inspired
Hebrew/Aramaic OT words and Greek NT words to the last jot and tittle, so that
in every age, God’s people will always have in their possession His infallible
and inerrant Word kept intact without the loss of any word (Ps 12:6-7, Matt
5:18, 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33, John 10:35).
(2)
The “providential” preservation of Scriptures is understood as God’s special
and not general providence. Special providence or providential
extraordinaria speaks of God’s miraculous intervention in the events of
history and in the affairs of mankind in fulfilment of His sovereign will for
the sake of His elect and to the glory of His Name. The divine preservation of
the Canon (books) and Text (words) of Scripture comes under God’s
special
providence.
(3)
The Bible is not only infallible and inerrant in the past (in the Autographs),
but also infallible and inerrant today (in the Apographs).
(4)
The infallible and inerrant words of Scripture are found in the faithfully
preserved Traditional/Byzantine/Majority manuscripts, and fully represented in
the Printed and Received Text (or Textus Receptus) that underlie the
Reformation Bibles best represented by the KJV, and NOT in the corrupted
and rejected texts of Westcott and Hort that underlie the many modern versions
of the English Bible like the NIV, NASV, ESV, RSV, TEV, CEV, TLB etc.
(5)
There are no mistakes in the Bible, period. If there are “discrepancies” in the
Bible, the “discrepancies” are only seeming or apparent, NOT real or
actual. Any inability to understand or explain difficult passages in the Bible
in no way negates its infallibility and inerrancy, applying the faithful
Pauline principle of biblical interpretation: “let God be true, but every man a
liar” (Rom 3:4).
(6)
Knowing where the perfect Bible is a matter of textual recognition and NOT textual
criticism. In the field of textual recognition, Burgon is good, Hills is
better, Waite is best.
(7)
The Chinese Union Version (CUV) is the “Word of God” for the Chinese people
today since it is the best, most faithful, most reliable, and most accurate
version among the Chinese versions presently available. Great care ought to be
taken not to undermine our Chinese brethren’s confidence in the CUV.
Nevertheless, versions or translations are never superior to the inspired and
preserved Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek Scriptures; thus there is a need to
consult
these original language Scriptures for clarity and fulness of meaning,
and
to compare Scripture with Scripture.
APPENDIX B
The KJV translators explained Psalm 12:7 in their 1611 version.
They wrote in the marginal notes what ‘them’ in verse 7 means. It reads ‘Heb. him i.e. every one of them’.
Therefore, the preservation is not about ‘words of the Lord’ but preservation
of God’s people.