by Matthew Verschuur

WORDS

“But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” (Matthew 5:37).

“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.” (Matthew 4:4).

Words are containers. Each word carries with it something. Words are the building blocks or cells of language. And words are made up of a very specific component set of letters. This means that each word has its own properties. Even if there are such things as homographs, like “bear” (animal) and “bear” (carry), the words are different though they appear and sound the same.

Words are put together, which is language, and language conveys meaning. This means that so much as a synonym or changing word order can impact meaning. Language is conceptually exact, and this is exactly how law works.

GOD’S KNOWLEDGE

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” (Jeremiah 29:11).

“Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” (Jeremiah 1:9).

God is the source for knowledge. In eternity, God possesses eternal, perfect and distinct concepts (ideas). These concepts are foundational to creation, language, Scripture and revelation.

God made man with the capacity to receive His communications. He also was able to use man via inspiration to have His words (which are full of spirit) written down. These are words and a message without error, communicating the divine truth of God for mankind.

GOD’S KNOWLEDGE OF SCRIPTURE IN ETERNITY

“LAMED. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” (Psalm 119:89).

“Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.” (Psalm 147:5).

In eternity God knows the Scripture. He knows what is to happen within the confines and bounds of time and space in Creation and Earth.

THE PERFECT BIBLE IN HEAVEN

“Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.” (Hebrews 10:7).

“It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:” (Hebrews 9:23, 24).

Like the fact that the book was in Moses’ tabernacle, and that the Scripture was in the temple, so likewise in Heaven there is the perfect Bible.

This Heavenly archetype is a perfect and finite copy of Scripture. It is the perfect form of Scripture. As such, it is written with words.

GOD’S WORK IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” (1 John 5:7).

“But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:” (Romans 16:26).

The three members of the Godhead bear record in Heaven of the written Scripture there, that is a legal and binding document, being the Old and New Testaments together.

The result of God giving His word in Earth, and its publication (see Psalm 68:11) is that it is designed to be made known to all. It is therefore on a path to get to all.

SOME POINTS ABOUT INSPIRATION

The doctrine of inspiration should be well established (see 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 and 1 Peter 1:20, 21). The inspired autographs were perfect, the message being correct and the message being perfect.

In the initial writing there were no mistakes, and the message was correct. The words were correct and the intention of the meaning was knowable, though of course, to start with men did not understand everything.

The words of full, infallible, inerrant etc. are rightly used.

Now to some really important concepts. If God knew the Scripture beforehand, and knows the end from the beginning (see Isaiah 46:10) then God knew what was going to happen, what would be written and what it was written beforehand. He knew words and language before Hebrew or Greek ever came to be the way they were.

Likewise God knows English beforehand and what the Scripture is in English He knows, for He prepared the language. God knew when, where and how it would be translated.

This means that God has conveyed Scripture through time. What it also means is that the inspiration process that occurred, in getting the Bible into Earth, the Scripture being copied and communicated retained the nature of being “inspired” because the “spirit” is “in” the words.

This means the inspired words conveying the divine message has come through all manner of Scripture copies, and that the Scripture today in English in our King James Bible is full of power. This is derivative inspiration and shows how the Bible in English right now is equal to the Scripture at any position on the timescale.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

God’s omniscience includes complete knowledge of His Word before time began. His knowledge is not limited to general concepts, but to the exact words and total idea that would be revealed.

Creation itself was executed through divine language. Jesus Christ as the Word (a title) represents divine reason and expression — a spoken, intelligible, meaningful Word. Language is pre-temporal and intrinsic to God’s nature.

Words matter. Not just ideas, but exact words have spiritual life and doctrinal significance. God’s communication is precise, not abstract. This affirms that specific wording is theologically meaningful.

Heaven contains books. However there is a primary Book, the Bible. This Book is “settled” in Heaven. The codified, finite revelation (i.e. Bible) exists in Heaven, not merely in theory, but in actual content.

The inspiration of Scripture is a transmission of truth from God’s mind (eternity) to man (time). If God’s Word is “settled in heaven,” then Earthly Scripture — as truly inspired — reflects that exact divine pattern. The Holy Ghost ensures the faithful transmission of God’s concepts to Earth, concept-for-concept, word-for-word.

If God has promised to preserve His Word forever, and if that preservation is real and knowable, then it must exist in a real, perfect form today. The King James Bible — as a translation drawn from the Textus Receptus (NT) and Masoretic Text (OT) — represents the final, providentially preserved expression of the original autographs and the Heavenly archetype.

WHERE THIS LEADS

First, that providential preservation is not random but is moving towards a finite conclusion. There must be a final Bible as a standard made common for the last days. This is the outcome of the work and the ultimate exact reflection of the Heavenly archetype.

Second, the English language (and all language) is not merely the naturalistic and seemingly haphazard history of development, but rather is providentially and supernaturally guided towards the way that it was: the English language was prepared for the KJB.

Third, in God’s design, English would be a global tongue, so it follows that His perfect Word would exist there. It means that words and their meanings were prepared so that the KJB would have them and that the audience could know the meanings of words.

Fourth, meaning of words is not governed by some arbitrary and Enlightenment-based measure such as “usage” or “human declarations” but primarily by God Himself. Usage should be conforming that what which God knows, and words and their meanings are actually ultimately designed by God. Now, whatever natural and seemingly mundane observations that can be made about English, in its coming to be, spelling, and even pronunciation, etc. is therefore part of some greater divine program.

Further with that point, I don’t mean that Received Pronunciation at one time is fixed, because we know there is always movement with language, and yet, somehow the King James Bible speaks exactly and directly in a fixed state to today. So however English is moving, it is not moving from a position where even one place in the King James Bible becomes unintelligible. It would follow that the spirit of Infidelity itself in this current time is trying its best to move things away, by promoting other languages or by trying to alter English, but all to no avail. We are witnessing an ongoing miracle that one Bible, the King James Bible, is speaking to all men everywhere with one full consistent message.

Fifth, it means that not only has God providentially worked to ensure that by 1611 there was the correct text and a correct English translation, but that it became the final form, and for the world. But now what of printing errors, spelling variations, standardisation, exactness and consistency of grammatical forms and other regularisation? If the King James Bible was right and fixed, why yet was there more in an editorial level? But this was necessary so as to have the conclusion of the editing actual jot and tittle perfection, that there would be not so much as a comma out of place.

Sixth, the scripture being pure, but requiring all kinds things to occur, these happened successively, so that the Canon was fixed, and then the Textual work, and then the translation work, and then the editorial work and finally the copy-editing. In this, we then have “nth” degree perfection, jot and tittle exactness.

Seventh, like law, the perfect form of lettering is not an end in itself, but the precision of meaning that it communicates. Thus, we can rely upon the Pure Cambridge Edition, that “example” is not precisely the same as “ensample”, that “always” is not exactly “alway”, “farther” differs to “further”, “stablish” has a different conceptual specificity than “establish”, that “betray” is distinctly different to “bewray”, etc. etc.

KNOWING

KJB-perfectionism is not just tradition or pragmatism, it is theological necessity, because it is the match with the Heavenly archetype.

The purpose of this is so that men may know the message of God, that the law of God be known in every place and that Christians as a whole can come to right interpretation of the Scripture.

Proper Biblical interpretation requires a high view of language and the supernatural preservation of meaning. Because Scripture reflects eternal truth interpretation must align with God’s intended meaning. Words are not merely fluid or culture-bound but ultimately eternally fixed.

“A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.” (Proverbs 1:5, 6).

The promises are sure, and the truth does indeed make free!

“For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18).