A Holocaust by Any Other Name

Sunday, January 27, is Holocaust Memorial Day, when the world remembers more than six million people, mostly Jews, who were systematically exterminated under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in Germany.

It is stunning to the mind of any civilized human being that a national government could systematically, through its official channels, murder anyone—much less millions—of its own citizens, though the world has become more conscious in recent years of genocides in other countries (such as the millions allowed to starve to death or killed by other means in Russia, China, Cambodia, Rwanda, and other countries).

As one who has a number of Jewish friends, I know it is very touchy to compare any other genocide with the one Jews experienced in Nazi Germany. But one week ago, we commemorated another--for lack of a better word--holocaust that has been going on in the United States for the past 46 years, when our Supreme Court ruled that, due to a right to privacy, a woman could legally abort the baby in her womb, and the remaining laws in almost every state against it were unconstitutional.

This holocaust has claimed roughly 60 millions lives. In 2018, abortion was responsible for 25% of all deaths in the US ; and, globally, "Abortion Named Leading Cause of Death in 2018 With 42 Million Killed."

But, even as committed as I am to the pro-life position, having founded or served on the boards of alternative Crisis Pregnancy centers in three major cities, it is still tempting to see a difference.

Seeing videos of adults being ushered into "showers" that turned out to be gas chambers and seeing the piles of bodies waiting to be put in the incinerators somehow seems more vile, more heinous than merely seeing the figures on those whose lives were silently extinguished in utero by surgical means.

But both are vile; both are heinous. And both are the result of allowing an ideology to determine the value of a life—to decide who is a person and who is not.

Popular Megachurch Pastor Says the Ten Commandments Don’t Apply to Christians

Faithwire is reporting the story this week, but Andy Stanley preached the sermon in which he is reported to have said that the Ten Commandments don’t apply to Christians anymore" in May 2018, and much of the Christian community took him to task for it, and rightly so.  Wesley Hill, of Trinity School for Ministry, wrote an excellent critique in First Things.  The Christian Post jumped on the story too:   But then they published an opposing opinion two weeks later.

My take on this when it first arose (and still is) that we are witnessing a dangerous trend among some popular evangelical preachers to jettison "unpopular" parts of Christianity.  They think that by doing it they are appealing to seekers and preserving their ability to evangelize them.  But in reality they are preaching poor theology, misconceptions, and half truths about the nature of the Bible and the Gospel, and no one can make genuine Christ-followers by doing that.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correcting, for training in righteousness..." (2 Tim. 3:16)  The Apostle Paul who wrote those words obviously had the Old Testament in mind when he said, "All Scripture..."  Paul also had plenty to say in the rest of his New Testament writings about the law as it pertains to justification by faith.  He is clear that we are not saved by keeping the law:

"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin" (Romans 3:20).  "Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified" (Galatians 2:16).  "Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because 'the righteous will live by faith'" (Galatians 3:11).

But notice the line Paul quotes in Gal. 3:11, "the righteous will live by faith."  It is a quotation from Habakkuk 2:4.  Ah, so the Old Testament teaches salvation by faith also!  But is the Law—specifically the Ten Commandments, which Andy Stanley mentions in his sermon—is the Law abrogated or abolished in the New Testament?

The Law frequently appears in the teaching of Jesus.  In the Sermon on the Mount he refers very specifically to it:  "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets" (Matthew 5:17).  Here the term would seem to mean the whole of the Pentateuch: "I came not to destroy, but to fulfill.  For truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished" (Matthew 5:17,18).

What Jesus really does is to bring out the fullness of meaning that is in the Law, and he declares that the righteousness of his disciples must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20).  The righteousness of the Pharisees consisted largely in a punctilious observance of the external requirements of the Law; but Jesus' disciples must yield their hearts and their obedience to the inner spirit of the Law.

Jesus goes on to cite the Ten Commandments precept by precept and to show the inner meaning that the disciples must obey:

Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said 'You shall not murder..."  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire."

Matthew 5:27-28, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Matthew 5:31-32, “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’  But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Matthew 5:33-34, “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’  But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all..."

Matthew 5:38-39, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’  But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil.  But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Matthew 5:43-44 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."

Does any of this sound like Jesus is abolishing the Law?  No. Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17).  So how did Jesus fulfill the Law?

Jesus fulfilled the Law and the prophets in his birth, ministry, death and resurrection.  He fulfilled the moral law by obeying it and by bringing out its true spiritual significance.  And he established it on a surer basis than ever as the eternal law of righteousness.  Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law, not only by conforming to its requirements, but by fulfilling it with his offering of himself as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin, so that it is no longer necessary for us to observe the Passover or repeat the daily Temple sacrifices.  But the moral law, epitomized in the Ten Commandments, remains as a reminder of the righteousness that God requires; and, thanks to the teaching of Jesus, we know that it is binding, not only on our outward actions, but on the attitudes of our hearts.

It is only by grace that we are saved (Ephesians 2:8-9); but when we are saved, we come to know that "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).  And by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us we manifest the "fruit of the Spirit... against which there is no law," in contrast with "the works of the flesh," which are against the law! (Galatians 5)

Now all of what I have just said, Andy Stanley could have learned if he paid attention in seminary, or read the right books, or even read a good article in a theological dictionary.  But this points to the real danger I am seeing in a lot of contemporary Christianity: the emphasis is more on salesmanship than it is on faithfully and accurately representing the product.

But the seriousness of this becomes clear when we realize that the Gospel is a message of words; it consists of teaching.  So when we fail to faithfully and accurately represent the product, we actually change the product.  And, to use an analogy from Chemistry, if instead of our words being sodium chloride (salt) which the Bible tells us they are supposed to be, they become potassium chloride which, in sufficient amounts, is the substance that stops the heart in a lethal injection!  And the theological shallowness of the entertainment culture that is influencing the contemporary Church is spiritually just as lethal.
 

Some thoughts on Bible Translation and the Textus Receptus

At the end of the 3rd century, St. Lucian of Antioch, known as Lucian the Martyr, compiled a Greek text of the New Testament that became the dominant text throughout Christendom.  It was produced prior to the Diocletian persecution (about 300 AD), during which many copies of the New Testament were confiscated and destroyed.  After the Emperor Constantine came to power early in the fourth century, the Lucian text was propagated by missionaries and bishops from the Antiochan school throughout the eastern Empire, and it soon became the standard text of the Eastern Church, and formed the basis of texts produced in Byzantium (later Constantinople).

From the 6th to the 14th century, the great majority of Greek New Testament manuscripts were produced in Byzantium.  In 1525 Erasmus, using five or six Byzantine manuscripts from the 10th to the 13th centuries, compiled the first Greek text to be produced on a printing press, and this has subsequently been known as the Textus Receptus (or Received Text).  The translators of the King James Version had around 5,000 manuscripts available to them, and most of these were based on the Byzantine manuscripts and Erasmus’ compilation (Textus Receptus).

By the 1800’s archaeological discoveries were turning up manuscripts that were substantially older than the ones used by the King James translators, in particular the Codex Alexandrinus (Alexandrian manuscript), the Codex Vaticanus (so named because it is housed in the Vatican Library) which has been dated to the 4th century AD), and the Codex Sinaiticus (the Sinai manuscript) which is mostly identical to the Codex Vaticanus.  All three of the critical texts include at least part of the Septuagint (LXX) for the Old Testament.

B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort began work in 1853 that resulted in a Greek New Testament based on these older manuscripts.  Their work, published in 1881, has been a major influence in most modern translations such as the ASV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, ESV, and the NIV.  The Textus Receptus is available to us today through the 1550 Stephanus New Testament and the 1894 Scrivener New Testament.  These two texts as well as Wescott and Hort’s 1881 critical text can be seen among the Greek (Koine) translations at www. biblegateway.com

When one looks at the care with which the Textus Receptus manuscripts have been preserved and especially the consistency among them, I believe the Textus Receptus is worthy of greater consideration than scholars have tended to give it.  So how should we view the differences between the Textus Receptus and the critical text?  I notice that the differences between the two consist almost entirely of additional words or phrases in the TR that do not appear in the critical text.  So, we can choose to believe either that words from the TR were inadvertently or intentionally left out at an early point in the history of the manuscripts so that what we know as the older or critical manuscripts do not contain them.  Or we can choose to believe that the extra words in the TR were the accidental or intentional additions of later scribes.

Let me illustrate with three examples:

(1) Colossians 1:14 in the TR says “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”  The oldest manuscripts do not contain the three words, “through his blood.”  So did a careless scribe leave them out, or did a pious scribe, perhaps thinking of the identical words in Ephesians 1:7, add them?  In any event, the fact that we are saved through the death (by the blood) of Jesus is the clear teaching of the New Testament, so the doctrine is not dependent on this one verse.

(2) Acts 8:37 does not appear in critical texts.  But in the TR, when Philip explains the passage from Isaiah that the Ethiopian eunuch is reading and the eunuch asks to be baptized, the TR says: “And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’  And he replied, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’”  So which is it?  Did a careless scribe leave these words out, or did a pious scribe add them?  In this case, I think it is more likely that the words were added to the TR than that they were left out of the critical manuscripts.  But it is important to note that being saved by believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is taught many places in the New Testament, so no point of doctrine hinges on the presence or absence of this particular verse.

(3) Mark 16:9-20 does not appear in the oldest manuscripts.  Is it more likely they were left out of these oldest manuscripts or added to later ones by a pious scribe perhaps reflecting on some of the miracles in the Book of Acts?  Unless one wishes to advocate snake handling as a standard church practice, as they do in a few parts of Appalachia, it really doesn’t change any doctrines taught elsewhere in the New Testament.

It is important to note that advocates of biblical inerrancy always say the Bible is inerrant “in the original manuscripts,” which, of course, we do not have.  While some skeptics see this as a convenient dodge, I believe it is the only realistic and practical way to look at the question of inerrancy.  We can accept as an article of faith that God inspired the Scriptures in the beginning to teach us inerrantly all that he wishes us to know.  So while there may be small differences in manuscripts, they do not affect any point of doctrine.  Therefore we can be thankful that the Holy Spirit not only superintended the writing of the biblical manuscripts when they were written, he has overseen their preservation and transmission so that the Scriptures in any of the faithful translations that we have today are entirely reliable and trustworthy in all that they teach.

Addendum: In 2014, the Gideons International were looking for a new modern-language English translation to distribute alongside the venerable King James Version, which they continue to distribute.  They had been distributing the New King James Version, but Thomas Nelson publishers, which owned the NKJV was purchased by Harper Collins, and the Gideons were not able to reach an agreement to continue to use that version.  Crossway, publishers of the English Standard Version (ESV) offered to provide the Gideons with rights to use the ESV, which is a respected translation among evangelicals, but which is based on the critical text, not the Textus Receptus, which is the text underlying the King James Version.  The Gideons agreed to this arrangement, provided that they could work with Crossway to create a special edition of the ESV that included passages from the Textus Receptus that are omitted in the commercially published versions of the ESV and other translations based on the critical text.

Comparing the changes made for the Gideons to the ESV is a good way to see the differences between the Textus Receptus and the critical text.  If you are interested, you can see a table comparing the changes in this article: Gideon changes to the English Standard Version New Testament.