The Final Authority for Choosing the Final Authority
March 2008, Bible Believers’ Bulletin
As anyone knows who knows anything, the main issue with angels, cherubim, and seraphim, God, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, Israel, the Mohammedans, Buddhists, Taoists, atheists, agnostics, Confucianists, scientists, and all modern evolutionists, philosophers, philanthropists, educators, military leaders, political leaders, and religious leaders is FINAL AUTHORITY. As a matter of fact, FINAL AUTHORITY has always been the universal issue, everywhere at the same time, night and day, without a letup, for 6,000 years. It began somewhere between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
- ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
- And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
This issue can be found in our old childish game, a game which we called “King of the Mountain” or “Who’s the Top Dog.”
According to Isaiah 14, it originated between a being who later was able to print English Bibles where he himself claimed the title of Jesus Christ (Isa. 14:12) instead of Jesus Christ having it alone. By this we mean the New International Version (known as the “Nutty Idiots Version”) with its reading in Isaiah 14.
- How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
-
12 How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
- We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
The issue before Genesis 1:2 was final authority.
The issue after Revelation 20:1–6 is final authority. This is why every apostate, Laodicean “Fundamentalist” in America has always avoided that issue every time it has been brought up, and has given you something else instead.
- ¶ And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
- And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
- And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
- And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
- But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
- Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
- And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
- And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
For a perfect example, one can observe the sideshow put on by the saved, good, “godly,” recognized, dedicated, qualified scholars, professors, and teachers at 110 main Christian Universities and Colleges between 1901 and 2007, where they gradually slid—backsliding— from their original preference for the Alexandrian text of Westcott and Hort, and Nestle’s, to the Textus Receptus by Beza, Colinaeus, Stephanus, Erasmus, and others.
They were still very careful to avoid giving you any FINAL AUTHORITY, after taking sides on both sides and coming up with nothing. When they got through with the Alexandrian Cult’s choice, which came from the editions by Erwin and Eberhard Nestle and vomited it out with the United Bible Societies’ Greek text (Aland and Metzger], their final authority was still themselves. The apostates who got cold feet with all the emphasis on the King James Bible between about 1950 and 1980, finally were forced to backslide to the Textus Receptus, thus making the Alexandrian bunch think that they had suddenly converted to “Ruckmanism.” But they still did not come up with any final authority. Every time, they all turn out to be “birds of a feather,” as all apostates, because apostasy is incurable.
When faced with the tremendous prospect of the “Receptus” being the final authority, right away they put out a translation of the Receptus, promoted and pushed mainly by Jerry Falwell and Liberty University (1982). When it came out, they claimed it made the Bible the clearest it had ever been, and now, instead of going by an obscure, archaic King James 1611, “at last” you could read the Bible clearly in your own language. So they corrected the King James Bible in 3,000 places again (while using the Receptus) and reinstalled into the King James Bible the readings of the ASV of 1901 and the RSV of 1952, the latter being a “Bible” put out by unsaved Liberals in the National Council of Churches.
What was their final authority?
They said it was the “Receptus.” They never learn, do they? Anybody who has studied any manuscript evidence knows perfectly well that there are five different editions of the “Receptus,” and they don’t agree.
This brings up an interesting problem: the problem of Genesis 1:1–2; the problem of Isaiah 14.
Where they disagree, what is your final authority?
The answer given by four or five dozen apostates (which we’ve located and quoted and published in our book The Christian Liars Library) is: “The critic HIMSELF is the final authority, because he must choose between the variants in the Receptus editions.”
Do you know what we do? We correct them with the King James reading.
If the King James reading is with Beza (where he disagrees with Erasmus) we take Beza. If the King James reading agrees with Erasmus but doesn’t agree with Stephanus, we take Erasmus.
We have a standard of final authority by which we judge Greek manuscripts. It’s a King James 1611 Authorized Version.
That is our final authority. That is final. Not even our opinion about it is final. It itself is final.
This makes Bible-believing Christians the only Christians in the world, as far as we know, that have a final authority that isn’t just somebody’s opinion. When the King James wasn’t around, then certainly God gave those Christians, in their language, a Book for their final authority; but when you consider the majority of human beings instead of a minority, you can see why He finally gave them a Bible in the universal language of the Twenty and Twenty-first Centuries—English.
That’s our final authority.
You say, “Which edition?” That is very simple: any edition. You say, “Well, what do you do when the two don’t agree?” They wouldn’t have to agree as long as they didn’t contradict.
The accounts of Jesus, in the Gospels, don’t match in every detail; and they don’t contradict.
The accounts of the birth of Jesus Christ don’t match word for word in all details, but they don’t contradict.
When a King James Bible tells you that “he went into the city” Ruth 3:15, and another edition of the King James Bible says “she went into the city,” what do we accept?
- Also he said, Bring the vail that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and she went into the city.
Either of them would be just fine, because they are King James Bibles. You say, “they contradict.” You lie; of course they don’t. In the accounts that say “he went into the city,” Boaz goes right there, and when “she went into the city,” Ruth goes into the city. You can’t call every variation an error unless you are an apostate, Laodicean flunkey who thinks he is the final authority.
I thought you might learn something about the background of final authority, since the editor of the ASV (the Asinine Silly Version) knew nothing about it at all. I’m referring to the chief editor of the ASV in 1901, Philip Schaff. He didn’t have the sense that God gave a brass monkey when it came to accurate history of the New Testament text, and when it came to spiritual understanding, he didn’t have enough to put in the left eye of a blind mosquito.
Philip Schaff, one of the dumbest, blindest Biblical illiterates that ever messed up the Bible, implanted the deadly notion among the scholars of his day (and after his day), that the canon of the New Testament was formed “on the model of the Old.” (See the remarks by Dr. Edward Hills in Believing Bible Study, published in 1967, pg. 9.)
This deadly poison was inserted with full knowledge that the Old Testament Scriptures were formed into a canon and preserved by an official priest-class from one tribe (Levi). Any student of freshman Bible knew that a priest-class was set up to determine what was Scripture and what wasn’t. Barnabas was from that tribe. He was a Levitical priest, and when he got saved and joined the New Testament church in the book of Acts and joined the “priesthood of believers,” his one individual tribe didn’t count for anything. The stupid Catholics made every one of their ordained ministers a “priest,” when a real “priest” in the New Testament Church was Barnabas— a Levite. With the great doctrine of the truth coming up about the Priesthood of Believers, and not popping up until the Reformation, these dumb Catholics thought there was still an elite tribe of “elitists” who could tell you what was Scripture and what wasn’t. These poor, ignorant, deceived fools put the Apocryphal books into the Old Testament as part of the Old Testament canon and claimed they were “canonical.” Of course, not one of them was. “The oracles of God” were given to the Jew according to Romans 3:1–2. They weren’t given to the Catholics.
- ¶ What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
- Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
Whoever wrote the Apocrypha (any of the books), if he was a Jew, he was an apostate Jew, and no “priest” from the tribe of Levi would recognize any of those works as “canonical.” They are accepted by all Catholics.
Now, do you know what that means? That means whenever a “Congress of Fundamentalism” meets or a council of bigwig Christians meets to determine what you should believe as a “historic position” of the Bible, you can throw it out the window, because the determining factor about “what is the Scripture” and what is not, is no longer settled by a bunch of elitists.
It is settled by the Body of Christ, because every saved Christian is a priest (:5, 9). This means when the bigshots get together and say, “this is heresy” and “this is not heresy,” or “if you’re orthodox you believe this and shouldn’t believe that,” and so forth—historic positions—the best thing to do is just put them on the bottom shelf until you’ve read the Bible through several times and know what you’re doing.
- Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
- But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Many “historic positions” turn out to be “wipe outs.”
For example, the “historic position” from back in the Fifth Century was “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.”
There is no such thing as the “Holy” Catholic Church. There is such a thing as “the church which is his body,” the Body of Christ.
- Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
- For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
But the Body of Christ, there, is neither Jew nor Gentile; there are only Christians: no Catholics. The Body of Christ is made up of people who are “in Christ” and have been put into Christ by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), but it isn’t called “the Catholic Church.” As a matter of fact, it isn’t even called the “Holy” Church, and “Rome” is out of the question. It was Romans who whipped Him and nailed Him and stuck a spear in Him.
- ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
- For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body., whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
Now, this is to warn you and to explain something you may not understand, but if you want to know why, to this day, the King James Bible ALWAYS sells more copies than any other three Bibles in the English language combined, it is because God won’t touch 100 years of revisions scholars put out, even if they were recommended by the “elitists.” It is the Body of Christ—the saved people—who determine what is Scripture and what is not Scripture, according to the Holy Spirit in their bodies.
I never taught even 50% of the Christians in this continent that the King James Bible was the Holy Words of God and the “Holy Scriptures.”
The Holy Spirit taught them that without any Fundamental congresses, councils, or any “historic positions.”
The Judge of the Holy Scriptures is the Author. If you want to know why the King James Bible has gone into over a billion copies now when its ten nearest rivals (combined) weren’t able to reach half that number—with all the scholars behind them, mammoth publicity campaigns, stock market investments, and God knows what—it’s because the Holy Spirit doesn’t bear witness to what the scholars say and write. God doesn’t have an elite group of “bigshots” to tell His people what is Scripture and what is not. The Holy Spirit shows them.