Basic Bible Doctrine (Part 03) – God’s Word (Part 2)

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1. The means of the preservation of the scriptures.
   1. Some say that God only inspired His word in the original autographs.
   2. The original autographs no longer exist, therefore either 1) God lied when he said His words would be preserved forever, or 2) He preserved them in copies and/or translations.
   3. God is well able to, and has, preserved His scriptures in copies.
      1. Moses and the stone tablets.
         1. God gave Moses the “original autographs” which He personally wrote (Exo 31:18).
         2. Moses destroyed the “original autographs” (Exo 32:19).
         3. God wrote a copy of the originals on two new tables (Exo 34:1 c/w Exo 34:28 c/w Deu 10:1-5).
         4. Therefore, the inspired word of God given by Moses was a copy.
         5. God is able to preserve and inspire His word in copies.
      2. Jeremiah’s roll of a book.
         1. God told Jeremiah to take a roll and write the words in it which He had spoken (Jer 36:2).
            • Jeremiah then dictated the words of the LORD to Baruch the scribe who wrote them down in the roll (Jer 36:4).
            • Notice that the words that Baruch wrote down were “the words of the LORD”, not Jeremiah’s words (Jer 36:6).
         2. After Baruch read the words of God to the princes, they asked how exactly it was that he wrote them down and Baruch made it very plain for them (Jer 36:16-18).
         3. When the word of God was read to the king, he, not liking what he heard, cut it up and burned it in the fire (Jer 36:22-26).
         4. The “original autographs” were destroyed; the word of God was lost.
         5. How were men ever going to have the inspired word of God with the originals lost?
         6. God’s answer to this dilemma was quite simple: preserve His word in a copy (Jer 36:27-28,32).

• The king of Israel was to make himself a copy of the law upon becoming king (Deu 17:18).
  1. He was to read his copy of the law all the days of his life (Deu 17:19).
  2. By doing so he would learn to fear God and “to keep ALL THE WORDS of THIS LAW and THESE STATUTES, to do them”. (Deu 17:19-20).
  3. His copy of the law was the inspired preserved word of God by which he could keep ALL the WORDS of the law.

1. Joshua made a copy of the law of Moses in stones (Jos 8:32).
   1. He then read “ALL the WORDS of THE LAW, the blessings and the cursings, ACCORDING to ALL that is written in THE BOOK of THE LAW” (Jos 8:34).
   2. According – 1. Agreeing, corresponding to; matching.
   3. When Joshua read his copy of the law to Israel, it was said that “There was NOT A WORD OF ALL THAT MOSES COMMANDED, which Joshua read not…” (Jos 8:35).
   4. Therefore, Joshua’s copy of the word of God was the inspired preserved word of God.
2. The “original autograph” of Proverbs 25 was an inspired copy of the word of God (Pro 25:1).
3. All scripture is given by inspiration of God (2Ti 3:16).
   1. Consider the following people who were said to be reading the scriptures:
      • Timothy from the time he was a child knew the holy scriptures (2Ti 3:15).
      • Paul reasoned out of the scriptures (Act 17:2).
      • The Bereans searched the scriptures (Act 17:11).
      • The Ethiopian eunuch read the scripture (Act 8:32).
   2. If all scripture is given by inspiration of God and what they were reading was called scripture, then what they were reading was the inspired word of God.
   3. If the only inspired scriptures are the original autographs, were all these people getting access to the original autographs of the Hebrew O.T. which was stored in the Ark of the Covenant (Heb 9:4)?
   4. Obviously not. They were all reading copies of the scriptures which were called scripture, which were therefore the inspired word of God.
4. At various times in the Bible, God translated his word and wrote it down as inspired scripture.
   1. Pharaoh speaking to Moses.
      1. The Egyptians didn’t speak Hebrew (Gen 42:23).
      2. When Pharaoh spoke to Moses, his words were spoken in Egyptian and written down in Hebrew (Exo 5:1-2).
      3. The “original autograph” was an inspired translation.
      4. God is still able to inspire and preserve His word through a translation.
   2. Paul giving his defense to the Jews.
      1. Paul’s gave his defense to the Jews in Hebrew (Act 21:39 – Act 22:21).
      2. The New Testament in which his words were first penned was written in Greek.
      3. This was an inspired translation.
   3. In the New Testament, God chose to translate His word into many different languages, not to make everyone learn Greek.
      1. On the day of Pentecost, there were Jews in Jerusalem from 16 different countries (Act 2:9-11) (every nation under heaven) (Act 2:5), who all spoke different languages (Act 2:6-8).
      2. Rather than make them all learn Greek, God translated His word by way of the gift of tongues into their several tongues (Act 2:11).

• God showed a pattern of things to come on the day of Pentecost: that His word was no longer going to be confined to the native language of the Jews, but that it would be translated into other languages.

1. Jesus told the apostles to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature (Mar 16:15).
   1. The gospel was preached in all the world unto all nations (Mat 24:14 c/w Col 1:6,23).
   2. Preaching the word to them in a tongue unknown to them would be a waste of time in that they could not understand it (1Co 14:11).
   3. The word would have to be translated, just like it was on the day of Pentecost.
2. By its 400+ years of bearing fruit, the King James Version has show itself to be an inspired and preserved translation of God’s word.