[Will Kinney]

It is supremely important to have faith in God, both for our salvation and for believing that He has kept and preserved His words throughout every generation as He promised to do. If you cannot believe God has kept His promise to preserve His words, then how can you believe He will keep His promise to preserve your soul?

Ask any modern version promoter if he believes the originals were given by inspiration of God. He will enthusiastically respond in the affirmative. Yes, they were inspired. Then ask him how he knows this to be true. He has never seen them because they don't exist. He believes it by faith. In the same way we too have faith that God both inspired His original words and that He has preserved them through history and today they are found in the King James Bible.

God fulfills His purposes in the fulness of time. He is sovereign in history and His timetable is not the same as mans. In Galatians 4:4 we read: “But when the FULNESS OF THE TIME WAS COME, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

One might well question why some 2000 years ago was “fulness of time” to send forth the prophesied Saviour when men had been perishing in their sins for hundreds of years previously. Yet God does all things according to His timetable in the fulness of time.

God sent the Lord Jesus Christ at the perfect time in history. When He completed what He came to do, He said, "it is finished" and then the work was complete. What happened through that work still lives on today.

Just as God did that with the INCARNATE Word, so He has done with His WRITTEN Word. God’s translation work for the English Bible was completed with the King James Bible. It happened in the fulness of time.

The King James Bible came at the perfect time in history, when English was at the perfect stage of development and when the hearts of the people were prepared to accept it. The Reformation and the Puritan movement were in full swing and the nations were soon to witness the greatest, world wide missionary outreach in history.

I believe in the sovereignty of God in history. "For the kingdom is the LORD'S; and He is the governor among the nations." Psalm 22:28. God has set His mark upon many things in this world that reveal His Divine hand at work in history. Why do we use the 7 day week instead of the 10 day week? Why are dates either B.C. (Before Christ) or A.D. (Anno Domini - year of our Lord)? (although the secular world is now trying in vain to change this too to BCE and CE.) England just "happens to be" the one nation from which we measure the true Time (Greenwich time, zero hour) and from which we measure true Position, zero longitude.

Another "happy coincidence" about the King James Bible is that it is the only one ever sanctioned by ruling king and his name was James, the English equivalent of the Hebrew Jacob. "Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?" Ecclesiastes 8:4.

In 1611 the English language was spoken by a mere 3% of the world's population, but today English has become the closest thing to a universal language in history. He used the King James Bible to carry His words to the far ends of the earth, where it was translated into hundreds of languages by English and American missionaries for over 300 years. The sun never set on the British empire. It was even taken to space by American astronauts and read from there.

God knew He would use England, its language and the King James Bible to accomplish all these things long before they happened. It is the only Bible God has providentially used in this way. It is the only Bible believed by thousands upon thousands of believers to be the inspired, infallible and 100% true words of God.

When the Word incarnate came to this earth, He did not come fully grown. Jesus Christ went through stages of development until He reached maturity as a man.

Even though Christ was God incarnate and sinless in nature, yet He still had to LEARN and GROW and BE MADE PERFECT in the sense of being made complete and mature.

"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Luke 2:52

"Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; " Hebrews 5:8-9.

And so too it was with the Scriptures in the English language, which is the closest thing to a universal language in today’s modern world and where the pure words of God exist. Psalms 12:6-7 say: “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 for ever.”

I believe these seven progressive purifications of God’s words in the English language are to be found in the following major Biblical works that finally resulted in The Bible of the English speaking people: Wycliffe's hand copied Bible of 1395, Tyndale's New Testament of 1525, the first complete and printed Coverdale's Bible of 1535 , the Great Bible of 1539 , the Geneva Bible of 1560 and the Bishops’ Bible of 1568 . These were the 6 previous purification stages until the Bible in English was fully perfected in what was originally called simply The Holy Bible and in more modern times has became known as the Authorized Version, the King James Version or the King James Holy Bible.

Every one of these previous English Bible contained all the major disputed verses (35 to 45 entire verses in the New Testament alone) that are omitted by so many of the modern versions that follow very different underlying Greek texts and often reject the inspired Hebrew readings as well. These include such versions as the RV, ASV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, ESV, NET and Holman Standard.

The verses omitted or called into question by these modern Bible of the Month Club contradictory versions are: Matthew 12:47; 17:21; 18:11; 21:24; 23:14; Mark 7:16; 9:44, 46; 11:26; 15:28; 16:9 through 20; Luke 9:55-56; 23:19; John 5:4; 8:1 through 11; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:6-8; 28:29, Romans 16:24 and 1 John 5:7.

The indebtedness of the King James Bible translators to their predecessors is recognized most clearly in the Preface to the reader where they state in no uncertain terms: “Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought, from the beginning, that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one; … but TO MAKE A GOOD ONE BETTER, or OUT OF MANY GOOD ONES ONE PRINCIPAL GOOD ONE, NOT JUSTLY TO BE EXCEPTED AGAINST—that hath been our endeavour, that our mark.”

The King James Translators also wrote: "Nothing is begun and perfected at the same time, and the later thoughts are the thoughts to be the wiser: so if we build upon their foundation that went before us, and being holpen by their labors, do endeavor to make better which they left so good...if they were alive would thank us...the same will shine as gold more brightly, being rubbed and polished."

Where was the word of God before A.D. 1611? In the same place it was before 1611 B.C.

In Matthew 4:4, Jesus says, "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Where was “Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” when Jesus said that? There was no New Testament written. The 66 book canon was far from complete when Jesus spoke these words.

Every word that they needed to live by was preserved for those living at that time. The Old Testament Scriptures in the Hebrew. But every word of God had NOT YET proceeded from the mouth of God.

Was the word of God preserved when Jesus said that? Absolutely! The word of God has always been preserved. It has not always been complete. There is a difference between "preservation" and "completion."

And so it was with the word of God in English before A.D. 1611. It was preserved; it just wasn't complete in English yet. It had to be made perfect just as the Word incarnate had to be made perfect.

"And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." Hebrews 5:8.

And in the fullness of time, the English Bible was made perfect in The Holy Bible, also known as the King James Version.

All of grace, Believing the Book,

Will Kinney

[Brother Tim]

Excellent article, Will!

[Will Kinney]

Originally Posted by Brother Tim

Excellent article, Will!

Thanks brother. Hopefully it will help some others too. I have often found that the "no bible is inerrant" crowd help me to rethink some things because of the questions they keep bringing up.

Praise God for His grace and mercy in giving us His precious words of Truth.

Accepted in the Beloved,

Will K

[Gord]

Another blessing to study, thank you.

[George]

Aloha brother Will,

Thanks again for another edifying Post.

[Brother Tim]

Of course, none of the MV lurkers to sneak around here and then run back to FFF will acknowledge the common sense truth that Will has presented.

[Forrest]

Thank you, Brother Will. Can I have your permission to copy and post this well written article to my personal website at a future time? I will not alter it.

[Will Kinney]

Originally Posted by Forrest

Thank you, Brother Will. Can I have your permission to copy and post this well written article to my personal website at a future time? I will not alter it.

Hi Forrest. Feel free to use it. That is why I write these studies - to share them with others. What you read is just a part of a larger article on Where was the word of God before 1611?

You can see the whole thing here. Use whatever parts you want to.

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/before1611.html

God bless,

Will K

[Forrest]

Thank you.

[Debau]

Thanks for the good article Bro. Kinney.
The only part I'd like to add is my belief that God's Word was complete before the foundation of the world, settled in heaven.

Was the word of God preserved when Jesus said that? Absolutely! The word of God has always been preserved. It has not always been complete. There is a difference between "preservation" and "completion."

Psalms 119:89 LAMED. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.

Psalms 57:3 He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.

Daniel 10:21 But I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince.

1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

Galatians 3:19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

Revelation 15:5 And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened: