“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” – Deuteronomy 4:2
I HAVE PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN IN these pages of the corruptions replete in all modern translations of the Bible, of the false gospels they preach, of the false doctrines they promote, of the false teachers they exalt. I have demonstrated how thoroughly they differ from the venerable King James Bible they seek to unseat. I have proven them to be unfruitful works of darkness which led many into perdition and everlasting destruction. Yet, I can never exhaust the depravity and deception manifest in the modern perversions of the sacred Scriptures, and will now expose three more examples of their changing the truth of God into a lie. As usual, I will first show the King James Bible’s accurate rendering of the verse in question, then list the modern “Bible” perversion of the same verse, before showing why these corruptions are so odious.
PERVERSION #1: JOHN 4:42
John 4:42 (King James Bible): “And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”
John 4:42 (English Revised Version): “They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
What happened to “the Christ” in the ERV? Why are its translators so against the name which is above every name being recognized as the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe? Christ Jesus was not merely a good man, a great teacher, a compassionate soul – many unbelievers and apostates will acknowledge these things. What they will not acknowledge, due their evil heart of unbelief, is that He was also God manifest in the flesh. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens (Hebrews 7:26). That He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, is what qualified Him, and Him alone, to be the Savior of the world. The title “the Christ” does not merely identify Him as Jesus; it designates him as the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who came to the world in human flesh, lived a perfect life, went to Calvary’s cross to pay for your sins with His precious blood, and resurrected three days later to sprinkle His shed blood on the heavenly Mercy Seat, thereby completing His work of redemption. The title “the Savior of the world” by itself does not necessarily refer to Christ; after all, there are many “saviors” to which the world looks – false gods, influential men, powerful organizations.
Unsurprisingly, the ESV also mutilates John 6:69, spurning the King James rendering of “thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” and replacing it with “you are the Holy One of God.” Appropriately, the only use of the phrase “Holy One of God” in the King James Bible comes in Mark 1:24, when a devil tells Jesus, “I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” Why do the ESV translators want the apostles and devils calling Jesus by the same title? Perhaps it is because these sons of Belial who shamelessly corrupt the word of God prefer everyone refer to Him with the same title they do.
PERVERSION #2: JEREMIAH 10:5
Jeremiah 10:5 (King James Bible): “They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.”
Jeremiah 10:5 (New American Standard “Bible”): “They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot walk! Do not fear them, For they can do no harm, Nor can they do any good.”
Promoters of the modern Bible translations will often make the disingenuous claim that the new “Bibles” differ from the King James Bible only in modernization of the language, which has been downgraded to the mediocrity of modern English so it is “easier to read.” I have refuted this lie previously in these pages, and therefore do not intend to revisit the subject here beyond mentioning the King James Bible was translated from a completely different (and vastly superior) family of manuscripts than those which constitute the modern perversions.
Scriptures as Jeremiah 10:5 blithely disprove that absurd belief of these differences between the KJB and the modern translations being merely the elimination of obsolete or archaic language. In what universe are “upright as the palm tree” and “like a scarecrow in a cucumber field” even remotely similar phrases? Since “palm tree” is not an archaic term, the sophistry of “archaic words” which Bible corrupters often deploy to defend or divert from their unlawful deeds cannot explain the enormous difference in words. Might I suggest the difference lies in two completely opposite sets of manuscripts, and two completely opposite translating philosophies, the King James Bible being translated word-for-word, and the modern translations being translated thought-for-thought?
“But,” the Bible corrupter protests, “this isn’t a big deal. So one versions says ‘palm tree’ and another version says ‘a scarecrow in a cucumber field.’ What’s the big deal? The same idea is expressed by both versions. Why split hairs over a non-issue?”
The purity and accuracy of God’s Word was not a “non-issue” to David, a man after God’s own heart. Of the Holy Scriptures, David said, “Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it” (Psalm 119:140). More importantly, the purity and accuracy of God’s Word is not a “non-issue” to the Almighty Himself, who has often promised He will preserve His Word “from this generation for ever” (Psalm 12:7). If God is to preserve His Word, then His Word cannot change, and if His Word does change – which it must certainly have, if a “palm tree” becomes “a scarecrow in a cucumber field” – then He has not preserved His Word, He is a liar, and we who have trusted Him for salvation are of all men most miserable.
Besides, it is not for us to decide what in the Holy Writ is, or is not, important. If God chose to include “palm tree” in His Word, then it should be left as “palm tree”, whether small-minded Bible “scholars” like it to be, or not. WORDS are what God promised to preserve – not themes, not ideas, not general frames of reasoning, but WORDS. Whether or not a modern perversion expresses “the same idea” as the King James Bible is immaterial.
PERVERSION #3: ACTS 20:21
Acts 20:21 (King James Bible): “Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Acts 20:21 (Common English “Bible”): “You know I have testified to both Jews and Greeks that they must change their hearts and lives as they turn to God and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Repentance toward God” simply involves a change of mind, by which a man understands himself to be a guilty sinner incapable of saving himself from going to Hell, and then leaves off believing whatever he heretofore believed to instead receive Christ as his Savior. It is an immediate act whereby the sinner is saved and sealed by the Holy Spirit, never to lose the free gift of salvation he received by faith in Christ’s blood. Jesus referenced this repentance in Mark 1:15, when he exhorted his hearers to “repent ye, and believe the gospel.” The men to whom He addressed Himself were to change their minds about whatever they hitherto believed about salvation by recognizing their sinnership and believing on Christ to save them from Hell.
Contrast “the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3) with the heavy burdens and grievous to be borne which the Pharisaical evangelicals lay on men’s shoulders. According to the Common English “Bible”, simply acknowledging one is a sinner, and looking to Jesus for salvation, is insufficient. All “must change their hearts and lives” before they are worthy to turn to God and have faith in Christ. According to them, salvation is not a free gift, but a reward which belongs only to those who suitably reform themselves so that they can earn eternal life. Men must turn from their sins, cease from their wicked ways, commit their lives henceforth to the cause of “religion”, surrender themselves to God, invite Jesus into their heart, follow Christ as their “Lord”, and then they will be able to go to heaven, so long as they persevere in their discipleship.
This does not sound, to me, like the easy yoke and light burden of which Christ spoke (Matthew 11:28:30). Moreover, if eternal life is a “free gift”, as the Bible emphatically proclaims (Romans 5:15, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:9), why should a man have to do anything to earn it? A true gift cannot be earned, after all. It is simply given, and received. In the case of salvation, no man can earn it, because it is “not of works, lest any man should boast.” Why would Christ need have died, if you could work your way to heaven? The self-righteous sanctimony implicit in the implication that how a man lives determines where he spends eternity overshadows the humble truth that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), and therefore no man will ever deserve to go to heaven, no matter how much he devotes himself to religion. Such is why Christ came to the earth, to be our Substitute and pay our sin debt for us.
The Common English “Bible”, like its fellow modern perversion brethren, prescribes reformation as the way to Heaven. But all the reformation in the world cannot save a man; he must be regenerated; he must be born again. And except a man be born again – no matter how many times he is baptized, no matter how many churches he joins, no matter how much religion he gets – he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).
CONCLUSION
The Scriptures make it plain that no man is permitted to add to, or diminish from God’s Word. But the translators of the modern Bible versions have added to, and subtracted from, the Holy Writ at will, thus proving themselves to be both fools and liars. They have handled the Word of God deceitfully in divers ways, divesting Christ of His deity, stupefying warnings against the gods of heathendom, and perverting the Gospel itself. These are not minor issues of disagreement in which only pedants take interest; these are fundamental doctrines of the faith being attacked, distorted, and downright destroyed by men of corrupt minds who perpetuate this sordid business of Bible corruption. The difference between the King James Bible and the modern counterfeits seeking to displace it is the difference between Christ, the sinless Savior and Christ, a sinful man; between a Gospel of free grace and a “gospel” of bondage, burdens, and works; between an eternity in Heaven, or an eternity in Hell. No portion of the Holy Scriptures is sacred to the perverting hands of ungodly men who wrest the Scriptures unto their own destruction and deceive many by their pernicious ways. Do not allow these self-styled “experts” to defile you with their sordid pseudo-scholarship, dear reader. If you do not have a King James Bible, you do not have a Bible.