I will engage the article on https://www.truthbpc.com/v4/main.php?menu=resources&page=resources/vpp_09, then systematically identify and refute its false teachings, and finally offer a biblically grounded, Reformed critique with a concise introduction and conclusion.
Introduction
The article, "Identification of God's Preserved Words (II)," argues for the doctrine of Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP). The author posits that the "autographs" (original writings) are no longer required because God has perfectly preserved every original word in specific "apographs" (copies), identified as the Hebrew Masoretic Text (Ben Chayyim) and the Greek Textus Receptus underlying the King James Version (KJV). The article asserts that any deviation from these specific 16th-century printed texts constitutes a rejection of God's promise to preserve His Word.
This research paper reviews these claims and refutes the article's teachings as historically inaccurate, logically fallacious, and theologically unsound. By demanding adherence to a specific printed text as the only "infallible" Word, the author creates a false dichotomy that undermines the true nature of God’s providential care for Scripture.
While presenting itself as orthodox, Reformed, and biblical, the article advances a novel and historically indefensible theory of preservation that confuses preservation with perfect uniformity, authority with one printed edition, and faith with anti-critical polemics. It further constructs a false dichotomy between “preserved Byzantine” and “corrupt Alexandrian” texts, while repeatedly misusing Scripture, misrepresenting church history, caricaturing modern textual criticism, and weaponizing the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) against positions the Confession itself never held.
This paper will demonstrate that the article’s central claims are exegetically unsound, historically inaccurate, theologically confused, and pastorally harmful. Far from defending Scripture, the VPP framework articulated here redefines preservation in a way Scripture never promises, binds conscience to fallible editorial decisions, and fractures the Church over matters God never absolutized.
I. False Teaching #1: Equating Preservation with Word-for-Word Identity in a Single Text Tradition
The Claim
The article repeatedly asserts that if God truly preserved His Word, then no word could ever differ, and therefore one exact form of the text must exist today, free from variants. Any textual variation is treated as proof of corruption, unbelief, or modernism.
Refutation
This claim fails biblically, historically, and logically.
Scripture teaches that God preserves His Word (Matt 24:35), but nowhere defines preservation as the absence of textual variation among copies. In fact, Scripture itself assumes copying, transmission, and human means (Deut 17:18; Jer 36; Col 4:16), without promising mechanical perfection in every manuscript.
The existence of textual variants is not evidence of loss, but evidence of abundant preservation. When thousands of manuscripts exist, variation is mathematically inevitable—and textually useful. No doctrine depends on a disputed text, and no essential teaching is lost.
The Reformers themselves knew of variants. Calvin openly acknowledged textual difficulties. Beza discussed variants extensively. The Reformed orthodox never claimed that preservation meant “no variants,” but that the Word as a whole is faithfully preserved and fully sufficient.
To redefine preservation as “perfect uniformity” is not Reformed theology. It is a modern absolutism imposed retroactively.
II. False Teaching #2: Treating the Textus Receptus as the Providentially Perfect New Testament Text
The Claim
The article claims that the Textus Receptus is the uniquely preserved Greek New Testament, received by the Church, purified by God, and immune from error—while all other text traditions are corrupt.
Refutation
This claim collapses under basic historical scrutiny.
There is no such thing as “the” Textus Receptus. Erasmus produced multiple editions. Stephanus produced several. Beza produced multiple. Scrivener retroactively reconstructed a Greek text from the KJV itself in the 19th century. These editions differ from one another in thousands of places.
Which one is “the” preserved text?
If preservation requires a single perfect form, VPP cannot even identify its own object.
Further, Erasmus openly admitted conjectural emendation, lacked Greek manuscripts for parts of Revelation, and back-translated from Latin. The TR is a remarkable historical achievement, but it is not a divinely guaranteed final form of the Greek text.
The Church never canonized the TR. No confession names it. No ecumenical council declared it infallible. The Reformers would have rejected that claim outright.
III. False Teaching #3: Demonizing Alexandrian Manuscripts as Heretical Corruptions
The Claim
The article portrays Alexandrian manuscripts (especially Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) as products of heresy, doctrinal corruption, and deliberate mutilation of Scripture.
Refutation
This is unscholarly polemic, not serious textual criticism.
There is no historical evidence that Alexandrian manuscripts were produced by heretics or altered to attack doctrine. In fact, many so-called “Byzantine” readings are later expansions, harmonizations, or liturgical clarifications—well known phenomena in manuscript transmission.
Older manuscripts are not “better” because they are older, but they are earlier witnesses. Textual criticism weighs manuscripts, it does not worship them.
Even more damning to the article’s thesis: modern critical texts often restore longer readings previously doubted, and Byzantine readings appear across all text-types, including papyri.
The reality is not two moral streams (“pure vs corrupt”), but a complex, cross-pollinated manuscript tradition—which is exactly what preservation through abundance looks like.
IV. False Teaching #4: Claiming Modern Translations “Delete” Scripture
The Claim
The article repeatedly claims that modern translations “delete” verses and words, implying intentional excision of God’s Word.
Refutation
This is misleading rhetoric.
Modern translations do not delete Scripture; they translate different manuscript readings, usually noting variants in footnotes. The KJV includes readings (e.g., Acts 8:37; Mark 16:9–20; John 7:53–8:11) that are absent in some earlier manuscripts but present in many later ones.
This is a textual question, not a theological conspiracy.
To claim that counting words removed equals loss of Scripture is numerology, not doctrine. If one translation includes expansions, another is not “cutting Scripture” by translating a shorter reading.
Ironically, if VPP logic were applied consistently, the KJV itself would be guilty, since it differs from earlier English Bibles and from the TR editions used to justify it.
V. False Teaching #5: Misusing Psalm 12:6–7 as a Prooftext for Textual Perfection
The Claim
The article repeatedly cites Psalm 12:6–7 as proof that God promised to preserve every word without variation.
Refutation
This is exegetical malpractice.
Psalm 12 contrasts God’s pure words with human lies and promises that God will guard His people against corruption. The nearest antecedent of “them” in verse 7 is the oppressed people, not syllables of text.
No Hebrew scholar—Reformed or otherwise—has historically interpreted Psalm 12 as a promise of identical manuscript transmission.
To extract a doctrine of VPP from this text is to force Scripture to answer a modern anxiety it never addresses.
VI. False Teaching #6: Declaring Scribal Error Impossible and Reclassifying Difficulties as “Apparent Only”
The Claim
The article insists that because God preserved every word perfectly, scribal errors cannot exist in the manuscripts we possess today.
Refutation
This position confuses inspiration with transmission.
Scripture itself records copying errors (Jer 36), variant numbers (2 Sam 8 vs 1 Chr 18), and parallel differences—without anxiety. Jesus and the apostles cited Scripture authoritatively without resolving textual minutiae.
To deny scribal error in copies is to deny the humanity of transmission—and ironically to accuse God of deception when the data does not cooperate.
The Reformers acknowledged scribal errors without panic because their doctrine of Scripture rested on God’s truthfulness, not on editorial perfection.
VII. Biblical and Reformed Alternative: Preservation Through Multiplicity, Not Monolith
Biblically and confessionally, preservation means this:
God has so overseen the transmission of Scripture that His Word has never been lost, its message never corrupted, its authority never compromised, and its saving truth never obscured.
Preservation operates through:
Abundant manuscripts
Cross-checking across traditions
The Church’s use, citation, preaching, and translation
The Spirit’s witness to the Word
This is exactly what we observe historically.
To the teacher propagating these false teachings:
You are rebuked for sowing discord among the brethren. By teaching that the use of modern translations is a "pop-modernistic attack" or a "perversion", you have falsely accused faithful servants of God of using "corrupt" Scriptures. You have made a "schism" in the body of Christ over a non-essential, man-made dogma.
You are rebuked for binding the consciences of the sheep. You demand they ignore their God-given reason—forcing them to believe a son can be older than his father (2 Chron 22:2)—in order to uphold your tradition. This is the spirit of the Pharisees, who "teach for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mark 7:7).
You are rebuked for undermining confidence in the Word of God. By claiming that any error in a copy proves God failed, you set believers up for a crisis of faith when they inevitably encounter the reality of textual variants. True faith rests in God’s providence, not in the perfection of a printer’s press. Repent of this divisive pride and return to the humble study of the Scriptures as God actually gave them, not as you wish them to be.
Conclusion
The article "Identification of God's Preserved Words (II)" attempts to provide certainty in an uncertain world, but it does so by sacrificing historical truth and biblical accuracy. The doctrine of Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP) is a theological novelty that ignores the physical evidence of how God actually preserved His Word—through the broad, providential spread of manuscripts, not the perfection of a single European text type.
The "false teachings" within—specifically the denial of scribal errors and the vilification of older manuscript traditions—must be rejected. The Church possesses the infallible Word of God in the faithful apographs we have today, which, when compared and studied diligently, reconstruct the Truth of the autographs with absolute clarity. We do not need a "perfect" KJV to know Christ; we need only the preserved Gospel contained within the sure testimony of the prophets and apostles.
The article under review does not recover historic Reformed bibliology. It replaces it with a rigid, modern absolutism that confuses faithfulness with fear, preservation with uniformity, and reverence with suspicion.
Its doctrine of Verbal Plenary Preservation:
Is not taught explicitly in Scripture
Is not held by the Reformers
Is not confessed in the Westminster Standards
Is not sustainable historically
And is pastorally destructive
By insisting that faith requires allegiance to one printed text and one English translation, it binds consciences where God has not bound them, divides the Church unnecessarily, and shifts confidence from God’s living Word to human editorial outcomes.
The irony is sharp: in trying to defend Scripture, the article narrows it, weaponizes it, and turns it into a litmus test God never instituted.
The Church does not need a perfect edition to have a perfect Savior, nor a flawless manuscript to proclaim an infallible Gospel. God has kept His Word—not frozen in one form, but alive, abundant, and authoritative, calling sinners to repentance and saints to faith, across languages, centuries, and cultures.
That is preservation worthy of the God who speaks.
No comments:
Post a Comment