Demons, what are?

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How do you explain the story about the demoniac called Legion (Mar 5:1-20)?

To “have a demon” was the same as to “have an unclean spirit”, which is a Bible way of saying that something was wrong or “unclean” about a person’s way of thinking or mental capability. In short, a person with a demon was a person with a mental illness.

The story about Legion — a man with many demons — illustrates this conclusion quite well. Prior to Jesus’ healing, Legion is described as “a man with an unclean spirit who lived among the tombs… so fierce that no one could pass that way… for a long time he had worn no clothes… no one could bind him any more, even with a chain… night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself with stones” (Mar 5:2-5; Luk 8:27; Mat 8:28, RSV).

After Jesus’ healing, the “man who had had the legion” caused great concern among the townspeople who “came to Jesus, and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind” (Mar 5:15). The man’s “before” and “after” descriptions contrast “unclean spirit” with “in his right mind”, “fierce” with “sitting”, and “wore no clothes” with “clothed”. In other words, sane behavior replaces insane behavior.

The behavior of ferocity, tomb-living, constant moaning and self-bruising can be explained by mental instability (manic depressant). Similarly, the “many demons” in the one man can be described by the affliction of multiple personalities (schizophrenia). Thus the story of Legion is that of a wild madman who terrified the countryside… who became (with Jesus’ help) a calm, rational disciple who proclaimed to that same ten-city area “how much Jesus had done for him” (Mar 5:20; Luk 8:39).

a) It is helpful to recognize the sequence of events. Notice that Jesus’ command for the unclean spirit to come out of the man (Mar 5:8; Luk 8:29) is prior to the man’s response of worship and saying “what have you to do with me?… do not torment me” (Mar 5:6,7; Luk 8:28). The healed man properly pays tribute to Jesus, but is still understandably concerned about a recurrence of his madness — had Jesus given him false hope? Jesus knew what was behind the man’s panic, as indicated by his teaching about an ‘apparently’ cured madman:

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest; and finding none he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first” (Luk 11:24-26).

A reasonable conjecture is that Legion had experienced progressively worse bouts of his madness. He had to have been calm enough from time to time to have people try to restrain him with chains. But then his adrenalin-fed mania would burst the bonds and drive him raving mad again. Given this interlude of sanity, it makes sense that Legion did not want his illness to come back with a vengeance. How could Jesus assure him that he was healed for good?

b) Jesus provided an unforgettable sign. In response to the man’s begging — and Matthew’s record says there were actually two men involved, which may explain why the text reads “they begged him” — Jesus had the disease enter a great herd of swine which were feeding on a nearby hill. Maddened, the 2,000 pigs rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned. Thus Legion saw with his own eyes the destruction of his madness.

The swine stampede was obviously a frightening experience, for “when the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country”, and eventually, “all the people of the surrounding country… begged Jesus to depart from them; for they were seized with great fear” (Luk 8:34,37; Mat 8:33,34). The difference between the two beggings is instructional.

As with his healing of the paralytic, Jesus had provided an object lesson. How could Jesus demonstrate that sin was forgiven? Command the man to pick up his pallet and walk! (Mar 2:5-12) Since no one could see that an invisible sin was gone, Jesus allowed the doubters to see the unmistakable fact of a paralytic instantly cured. How could Jesus convince Legion that an invisible insanity had forever left his mind? Have it visibly transferred to the “unclean” pigs, which were subsequently drowned! As the prophet Micah wrote, “He will again have compassion upon us, he will tread our iniquities under foot. Thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic 7:19).

c) In all three Gospels, the story of Legion comes immediately after Jesus’ calming of the wind and sea (Mat 8:23-27; Mar 4:35-41; Luk 8:22-25). This cannot be accidental. Surely the point is that Jesus can calm the storm in a man’s mind as easily as he can speak to the howling whirlwind and tumultuous waves.

Interestingly enough, the text says Jesus spoke directly to the wind and the sea as if they were living objects — but they weren’t. Perhaps that helps answer why the text seems to present demons as if they were living objects — when they really aren’t. When Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, he “rebuked the fever, and it left her” (Luk 4:39). Was the fever an independent entity? No.

d) How do doctors explain mental illness today? They don’t. They observe the interactive responses and manifestations of chemicals, electricity, neurons, the brain and the body. And they give long scientific names to certain phenomena and behavior. But applying a label does not constitute understanding. The Bible description of being “possessed by a demon” is just as meaningful and accurate as today’s medical pronouncement: “he’s a manic depressant” or “he has bipolar affective disorder”. And the Bible description is certainly easier to understand.

a) Not every case of demons was strictly mental illness: sometimes there was blindness, dumbness and deafness involved (eg Mat 9:33). So a fuller definition of demon is: a term descriptive of those physical and mental aberrations whose cause and source is veiled from the sight of man.

The summation of Jesus’ wonderful healing is described as “healing every disease and every infirmity among the people… all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them all” (Mat 4:23,24). Since all categories of illness are being included, this description is covering both physical and mental illnesses, and thus the term “demoniacs” is probably indicative of both.

Later on, Jesus gave the twelve “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity” (Mat 10:1). So having an unclean spirit, ie, being possessed by a demon, seems to bridge mental and physical aspects, yet provides a distinct category of its own: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Mat 10:8, a restatement of v 1).

b) Demon possession is clearly a class of infirmity, as is made clear by the following:

“That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases’ ” (Mat 8:16,17).

Here, “possessed with demons” parallels “infirmities”. The usual words that go with “demons” and “unclean spirits” are “cast out”, as in this passage, but in Mat 12:22 and Luk 7:21, the words are “healed” and “cured”. Act 19:12 presents the same picture: “diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them”.

c) The Bible does not present demons as independent, distinct entities. Like a disease, they always have a human host. So when we read, “then a blind and dumb demoniac was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the dumb man spoke and saw” (Mat 12:22), it is not a distinct entity which is blind and dumb but the man who could not speak or see. Similarly in Mar 9:25, the “dumb and deaf spirit” meant that it was the boy — not some other entity — who could not speak or hear.

d) At various times, Jesus himself was thought to be or accused of being mad, that is, he “had a demon”. An interesting series appears in John’s Gospel. When Jesus stated that the Jews were seeking to kill him, “The people answered, ‘You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?’ ” (Joh 7:20). When Jesus unswervingly told the Jews the truth about themselves, and that they were not listening to the words of God, “The Jews answered him, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ ” (Joh 8:48). When Jesus replied that any one who kept his word would not see death, “The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, “If any one keeps my words, he will never taste death” ‘ ” (Joh 8:52).

In other words, the Jews were saying Jesus was “crazy”, “deluded”, “insane”, or as might be colloquially said today, “you’re mad!”

e) In Mar 3, Jesus is accused this way: “He is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out demons” (v 22). “He has an unclean spirit” (v 30). Even some of Jesus’ friends were saying, “He is beside himself” (v 21). Of course, Jesus was not crazy. Rather, his teaching proved he was from God, and his healing was destroying the stronghold of the dreadful diseases.

f) Consider two statements of the apostle Paul: “Come to your right mind and sin no more. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame” (1Co 15:34), and “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you” (2Co 5:13). Here, “right mind” is opposite “beside ourselves”, ie, crazy or deluded. This phraseology is the same as that used by Jesus’ accusers who claimed he had a demon; he and his teaching were, in their view, the result of madness! So it is not surprising to read about the Roman governor Festus, alarmed by the penetrating and uncomfortable testimony of the apostle, accusing Paul of being deluded: “You are mad, your great learning is turning you mad!” (Act 26:24).

g) What is the significance of having “an unclean spirit”? The reverse of unclean is clean. What then is a clean spirit? 1Co 2:11 says, “For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” This verse indicates that one aspect of “spirit” is the close connection with (but distinction from) thoughts. The passage goes on to talk about the mind of the LORD and having the mind of Christ (1Co 2:16). In other words, the spirit of a man is the mind of a man. A man’s spirit oversees his thoughts, which in turn determine behavior. So when a man has a clean spirit, his thoughts and resultant behavior will reflect that cleanness.

David describes this kind of cleanness: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psa 51:10-12). He understood that God wanted him to have “truth in the inward being” and “wisdom in my secret heart” (v 6). He needed to be forgiven by God, and then he would “be clean” (v 7). He realized that “the sacrifice to God is a broken spirit” (v 17), a mind seeking forgiveness of sins (vv 1-4). David was physically suffering as the result of his unrepentant sins of adultery and murder, and needed to find the blessed relief of forgiveness given to a man “in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Psa 32:1-5).

Replace the good characteristics with their opposite. What do you get? An unrenewed, wrong, unwilling, rebellious, deceitful spirit. In short, an unclean spirit. How is that unclean spirit made manifest? In a person’s thinking and resultant behavior. And inescapably, in a person’s health. So when Jesus was casting out unclean spirits (demons), he was in effect giving a person a new start in life with glowing health and sins forgiven.

h) The connection between the mind and illness is being understood better every day. What used to be dismissed as “psychosomatic” — the illness is all in the mind and, hence, not real — is rapidly becoming the real explanation in the majority of cases (B Siegel, MD, “Love, Medicine and Miracles”, Harper & Row, New York, 1986, p 111). So healing an unclean spirit (mind) is truly getting to the source.

(a) Could there still be a distinct entity or evil spirit called a demon which “possesses human beings” and causes them to have physical and mental problems? Theoretically, yes. But would it not be logically redundant? Given what seems to be a clear linkage of “sin” and “unclean” and “disease”, being demon-possessed indicates a person having a maddening disease, rather than a demon causing a maddening disease.

(b) If one argues that there needs to be a cause behind the disease, then the real, true cause must go back to God Himself. The Bible makes this point very clear: “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exo 4:11).

The source of the evil spirit that came upon king Saul is explained to be from God (1Sa 16:14-16, 23; 18:10; 19:9). God claims full and unique responsibility for bringing evil and affliction upon mankind (cf. Isa 45:7; Amo 3:6; 9:4; Eze 6:10; Jer 32:23; 1Ki 21:21). The teaching that there is another evil power at loose in this world — Satan or the Devil — is not true Bible teaching.

(c) If one still insists that there can be some entity between God and man who can bring evil upon the man, one explanation is an “angel of evil”, like those described in Psa 78:49 (KJV) — an angel that, under God’s control, brings “evil” or trials upon mankind… not an “evil angel” in the sense of being sinful or wicked. When God pours out His wrath upon the earth, Scripture describes it as being performed by His angels (cf Rev 16). So if someone argued that a demon was an angel of God who brought a maddening disease to an individual, in the sense discussed above, there would be room for agreement.

(d) Why does the New Testament frequently mention demons, but the Old Testament hardly mentions them at all? The most likely answer is that, between Old and New Testament times, the notions of the Greek culture had had a significant impact on the world of the Middle East. “Demon” was a word the Greeks used to describe many of the (false) gods they worshiped. Paul uses the word twice to mean a heathen god, and equates them with idols:

“What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1Co 10:19-21).

For a monotheistic Christian — one who believed in the one and only God of Israel — any behavior (like eating food offered to idols) that would suggest credence in pagan gods, could create a stumbling-block for someone who wasn’t fully convinced. This was the substance of Paul’s discussion in 1Co 8. While those strong in faith knew that “an idol has no real existence” (v 4), they were to avoid any appearance of indicating belief in Greek demons, and were thus exhorted: “Shun the worship of idols” (1Co 10:14). Non-worship of idols is plainly an Old Testament teaching (eg, Exo 20:4; Isa 44:9-20), and the basis of Paul’s arguments come directly from Moses: “They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods… They sacrificed to demons which were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come in of late, whom your fathers had never dreaded” (Deu 32:16,17).

By NT times, therefore, the Greek belief of demon-gods who were the cause of evil among men had infiltrated the thinking of Mid-Easterners. For example, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote: “The poets speak excellently who affirm that when good men die, they attain great honor and dignity… It is also believed that the souls of bad men become evil demons.” The first-century Jewish historian Joseph-us claimed: “Demons are no other than the spirits of the wicked that enter into men that are alive, and kill them, unless they can obtain some help against them.” Such teaching is not found in the Bible.

(e) Not everybody in the Greek-speaking world believed in demon possession. Hippocrates was a famous Greek doctor who lived in the fifth century before Christ. In his treatise on epilepsy, he stated that the popular belief in demon worship was not true; epilepsy must be treated by medical care just like every other disease ( I. Asimov, in Guide to Science, vol 2, ch 4, Basic Books, New York, 1972). For about the next 600 years, until the second century AD, all the best-educated Greek doctors were taught this (“Hippocrates” and “Galen”, in The Penguin Medical Encyclopedia, Penguin Books, London, 1972). This does find support in the Bible.

DEMONS: POINTS OF INTEREST:

1. Associated with “healing” (Mar 1:34; 3:15; 6:13).
2. Nature of diseases: dumbness (Mar 9:17,25), epilepsy (Mat 17:15-18).
3. John records healing miracles without ever referring to “demons” — thus the precise language is secondary.
4. The manifestation of “demon” possession depended entirely on a host. Evidently, then, the “demons” had no separate existence.
5. No OT refs to demons; no teaching as such in all of Scripture (NMk 19,20).
6. Though Jesus “spoke” to demons, he also “spoke” to a fever (cp Mar 1:31 with Luk 4:38).

(NF)

Baptism — essential for salvation

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“The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Pe 3:21).

In the passage quoted above, the saving of Noah in the Ark of refuge which he built is likened to baptism. The water saved Noah and his family because it lifted them above the destruction that swept away the ungodly world in which he lived. The waters of baptism can save us from the judgements that Christ will shortly bring upon all the wickedness of the age we live in (1Pe 3:20; Mat 24:37).

Baptism in Scripture

Baptism is first mentioned in Scripture in relation to John the Baptist’s ministry (Mat 3:5,6,11). His baptism was one of repentance (this means a change of heart, leading to a changed way of life). It anticipated the baptism of the Lord Jesus and was intended to prepare the Jewish people to believe in Christ (Acts 19:4,5). Israel had already been nationally baptized into Moses when they crossed the Red Sea (1Co 10:2), but now Christ commissioned the apostles to baptize individual believers of the gospel, both Jew and Gentile, into his name (Mat 28:19,20; Mar 16:16). Baptism into Christ identifies believers with the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, which, having been accomplished, render this baptism of more significance than either Moses’ or John’s baptisms, which it replaced (Rom 6:3-6; Acts 2:37,38).

The need for correct belief

Jesus said in Mar 16:16: “He that believeth [the gospel] and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned [condemned]”. Belief of the one gospel (Gal 1:6-9; 3:7-9,26-29) and baptism are both necessary. The Acts of the Apostles gives us several impressive examples of correct belief preceding baptism:

• Acts 2:14-41 — Jerusalem Jews on the day of Pentecost
• Acts 8:12 — The Samaritans
• Acts 8:27-39 — The Ethiopian Eunuch
• Acts 10:1,2,34-48 — Cornelius and his companions
• Acts 16:14-34 — Lydia and the Philippian jailer and his family
• Acts 19:1-5 — The Ephesian disciples of John the Baptist

Are there any exceptions?

There is no record in Scripture of the repentant thief on the cross (Luk 23:40-43) being baptized. Jesus promised he would be in the Kingdom. But he might have been baptized earlier by either John or the disciples of the Lord (Joh 4:1,2). But the example of Christ must be our guide. He said, on the occasion of his baptism: “thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness” (Mat 3:15). There can be no exceptions; all who wish to be saved must believe and be baptized.

Christening, infant baptism and the Baptists

The Greek words for baptize and baptism mean being fully immersed. There is no suggestion in Scripture of baptism being a sprinkling with water. There are several passages that describe or imply bodily immersion; for instance, Mat 3:16; Joh 3:23; Acts 8:38. Infant baptism was first heard of in the days of Tertullian (AD 200), who vigorously opposed the practice. The rite of infant sprinkling dates back to pagan Roman customs, when babies were sprinkled with holy water and named. Like many other pagan ideas, this rite of infant baptism was gradually superimposed on Christian teaching (2Ti 4:3,4). Infant baptism belongs to the apostate church. When the sect called the Baptists came into existence in the seventeenth century they believed the promises made to David, and looked forward to God’s Kingdom on earth, immersing only adult believers. Today, many Baptist churches believe in such doctrines as heaven-going, the Trinity and a supernatural devil, having abandoned their earlier Scriptural beliefs, and some do not even insist on total immersion, but sprinkle with water.

The symbolic meaning of baptism

Baptism is a symbol of sacrifice and of resurrection. Sacrifice always involves death. Baptism into Christ links us with his death, which destroyed “the body of sin” (Rom 6:3,6). Baptism signifies death to the former way of life, enslaved to sin, and the commencement of a new life enslaved to Christ (vv 4-13). Baptism also identifies us with Christ’s death and resurrection (v 5), that we might one day inherit eternal life in the Kingdom (v 23; Isa 26:19).

Baptism changes our position before God

When, after a good confession of the one faith (Acts 8:37; Rom 10:10; Eph 4:5), a true baptism takes place, Scripture teaches that our past sins are forgiven us, for Christ’s sake (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 22:16; 1Co 6:11; Col 2:11,12). We become “a new creature”, as Paul teaches (2Co 5:17). We become the children of God, and heirs of the life-saving promises made to Abraham (Gal 3:26-29). We have access to God through Christ in prayer, being no longer “children of wrath” and alienated from God (Eph 2:1-3,12,13).

At what age should baptism take place?

All the Scriptural examples are of persons capable of believing the gospel, defined as “the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ” (Mar 16:16; Acts 8:12). Passages such as Col 3 set out the responsibility to lead godly, obedient lives which falls upon those who have “risen with Christ” (v 1). The age a person is baptized will depend therefore on his or her maturity and understanding. All baptisms, of young or old, will be preceded by repentance (Mat 4:17; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; 2Pe 3:9). Some crisis of the mind will trigger the realization that we must be baptized, as this is the will of God, and that only in Christ can we be saved (Acts 4:12). All manner of circumstances, people or events can lead to this crisis of mind. If we have not already been baptized, may we respond to the call of Peter, as 3,000 did on the day of Pentecost, to “Save [ourselves] from this untoward generation” (Acts 2:40).

Baptism, at a

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As we read in Rom 6, baptism is an end as well as a beginning. It marks a death as well as a new life:

“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Rom 6:3,4).

Here, in baptism, is a recognition that the end of natural life is death — that all are under the power of the great enemy “sin” and death; and that all life’s hopes and joys are under its cloud.

The writer of Ecclesiastes, who was wealthy and had experienced all that life had to offer, finally said:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!… Utterly meaningless! —

In the KJV, this reads: “Vanity of vanities… all is vanity!” — “Everything is meaningless.”

“What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?”

By itself, this sounds rather pessimistic. But it has been pointed out that they key phrase here is “under the sun”. In other words, all is meaningless and vain if man lives his life seeing nothing higher in the heavens than the sun — that is, if he does not see or recognize the one true God. This is, thankfully, not the case with us; life does have meaning, and purpose!

But notice the symbolism again in Rom 6: First there is death, and then there is… burial:

“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death” (Rom 6:4).

With this we may compare Col 2:12:

“Having been buried with him (Christ) in baptism…”

This is, incidentally, the meaning of the Greek word “baptizo”: literally, to immerse, to plunge under, to dye! When a garment maker wished to dye a garment, he plunged it or “baptized” it in a vat of dye.

In baptism, then, there is death, burial… and then resurrection:

“If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom 6:5-7).

The death of that which is “old” must precede the birth of that which is “new”, as we read also in Eph 4:

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”

The same lesson is evident in the story of the Passover. In God’s plan, something (the Passover lamb, the firstborn in Egypt, the Egyptian army in the Red Sea) must die so that something else (the children of Israel, the new nation) might be “born”!

In Acts 2, the apostle Peter preaches to the Jews in Jerusalem shortly after the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (Act 2:22-24).

So Peter taught, as a matter of first principles, that:

1.	Jesus was the Son of God.
2.	You (the Jews) killed him.
3.	But God raised him to life again.

“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, ‘ “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’ ” ‘ ” (Act 2:32-35).

So Peter also taught:

4.	This same Jesus is now in heaven.
5.	And he will return to set up God’s Kingdom on the earth.

“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins’ ” (Act 2:37,38).

So, Peter is saying, here is what you (and we!) must do:

6.	“Repent”: that is, change your life; turn it around! In short, be “born again”!
7.	And then, live a new life!…

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (Rom 6:11-13).

The believer’s life is, or should be, one of joy. Even in the midst of a world of sorrow and pain, the believer rejoices in God’s gifts and God’s promises.

The believer’s eye is firmly set on the hope that rises like a mountain before her. There may be a “valley” (or several valleys) to walk through before she reaches that mountain peak (Psa 23:3,4). But he/she never takes his/her eye off that glorious future… and all life’s little (and not-so-little) annoyances and inconveniences are seen for what they are… stepping stones en route to the Kingdom of God…

“In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.’ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Heb 12:4-11).

It is quite possible for the believer (esp the new believer) to become discouraged when she puts the holiness of God alongside her own failures. Then one might say:

“I’m simply not good enough to be in God’s Kingdom!”

But God knows our failures, and He has promised to forgive us…if we are sincerely sorry for them, and if we keep trying to serve Him!

The only truly “unforgivable sin” is to turn one’s back of God, and to go away from Him!

And, remember: God does not want to judge/punish us! He wants to save us!

“What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:31-39).

It can be done! If we stand at the beginning of our probation and look right to the end, seeing Christ in his perfection, it may seem an impossible task! But even a marathon is the sum total of so many single steps, and God has commanded us to follow His Son, promising us strength all along the way. Growing up in Christ is not an immediate action; it is a slow process — by stops and starts, most likely — learning obedience, as our Master did, through sufferings. And to those who obey, whether they be wise or simple, young or old, male or female, God will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, and the trials through which they pass in the “fellowship” of His Son. More and more, step by step, they will learn who Christ truly is, and become more and more conformed to that image.

Baptism, meaning of

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Baptism in faith is our meeting point with the saving death of Jesus Christ without which there is no forgiveness of sins and therefore no hope.

Baptism

• is our open confession of our need for God’s redeeming grace.
• is the token that we are crucified with Christ.
• is the means of cleansing from past sins.
• is a sign of rebirth as a spiritual creature.
• is an echo of the greater rebirth in spirit nature.
• makes us heirs of God’s promises.
• inscribes our names in the book of life.
• is NOT optional.

The importance of baptism —

• Only one way: John 14:6; 3:5.
• A command of Jesus: Mat 28:19-20.
• Required even when the Holy Spirit already given: Acts 10:47,48.
• The answer of a good conscience: 1Pe 3:20,21.
• Assumed by Paul as inevitable: Col 2:12; Rom 6:2.
• Immediate: Acts 8:12,36; 9:18; 10:48; 16:33.

Why was Jesus BAPTIZED (since he was sinless)?

Jesus accepted baptism because his Father desired it of him. His baptism was an example for others (note Acts 2:38). He pointed the way for the rest of humanity, linking himself, in his sinlessness, with the sins of those, of like nature, whom he came to redeem. “All flesh is grass”, including the flesh of the Son of God.

Why must one be immersed and not sprinkled with water?

• The method of baptism — Down into the water, up out of the water: Mark 1:10; Acts 8:38,39.
• John baptized in Aenon, because there was much water there: John 3:23.
• Likened to burial: Col 2:12.
• In the cloud and in the sea: 1Co 10:2.

Immersion, pouring or sprinkling? — Sprinkling as a baptismal method arose because of the baptism of infants. The baptism of infants arose because of the adoption of a false doctrine of sin: that infants possess guilt for sin because they are born “in Adam”, and need baptism to remove this guilt. But the issues to be confronted and mastered before baptism are for mature decision; baptism is for adults.

Sprinkling? Note Acts 8:36; it is inconceivable that a man crossing a desert would not have a few drops of water in his possession.

While sprinkling fits the “washing” imagery of baptism in the NT, it hardly fits the burial and resurrection pictures which are just as important.

John the Baptist is often pictured pouring water over the heads of his followers; this fits only slightly better!

How much knowledge is sufficient to be considered for BAPTISM? Prerequisites for baptism —

• Hearing: Mat 28:19; Acts 11:14; 16:14,32.
• Belief: Mark 16:16; Acts 8:12,37; 18:8.
• Confession/Repentance: Mark 1:5; Acts 2:38.
• A right attitude: 1Pe 3:21; Rom 6:17.

What must be believed?

“But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12).

Things concerning the kingdom of God —

• promises to Abraham: Gen 11; 12; etc.
• the faith of Abraham: Gen 15:6/
• established a nation in God’s land: Josh.
• the throne of the Lord in Jerusalem.
• the promises to David: 2Sa 7.
• the faithlessness of Israel: 2Ch 36.
• the kingdom overthrown: Eze 21:25-27.
• salvation is of the Jews: John 4:22.
• strangers from the covenants of promise: Eph 2:12.
• yet children of Abraham by faith: Gal 3:7.
• and heirs according to the promises: Gal 3:29.
• …by BAPTISM into Christ: Gal 3:28.

Things concerning the name of Jesus Christ —

• realization that all men are sinners: Rom 3:23.
• sin leads to death: Rom 6:23.
• death is final: Psa 146:4.
• no help from man; only God can help: Psa 146:3,5.
• only one way to reconcile men to God: Rom 5:11.
• because Jesus overcame sin, the root of separation: Heb 4:15.
• destroyed the devil through death: Heb 2:14.
• Jesus, not having sinned, could not be held in the grave: Acts 2:24.
• we are linked to this through BAPTISM: Rom 6:3,4.

Who should be the one to administer a valid BAPTISM?

Baptism is effectively the entrance into the household of faith, so to be baptized by a member of that household is appropriate. Baptism also follows a public confession of belief — and one would surely want to confess this belief to fellow-believers. But the validity of your baptism depends on what is in the heart of the person being baptized, not the status of the person who hears one’s testimony and helps ensure that one is submerged.

Themes involved with baptism:

Submission/Acknowledgement —

Baptism is a command. We can submit to it or refuse. Baptism is not however a normal career choice; something which just happens naturally. It is a revolution, a complete change in the course of someone’s life: when he embraces new goals, a new family, a new life. A natural child of Adam, born under the shadow of death and bound by the dominion of sin, reaches a point where they voluntarily choose what is good and holy, and reject all that is related to the kingdom of sin. They don’t do this because it is expected of them, or from desire for reward, or from fear of the consequences of doing otherwise, but out of a pure, transforming, love for the Father.

Confession: Rom 10:9,10; 1Ti 6:12,13, 1Pe 3:21.

No other resources: Gen 47:18, Luke 7:42; 8:43; 15:14.

Sincerity and motive are important: Rom 6:17; Eph 2:8-9; 1Pe 3:21.

Identification with Christ —

• No one can come to the Father except by him: John 14:6.
• Baptism is into his name, into him, closely associating with all aspects of his sacrifice: Rom 6.
• In “equivalent” pagan ceremonies, the identity of the initiator was paramount. Not so here; baptism is into Christ and the baptizer can be anyone: John 4:2; 1Co 1:13-17.
• Compare Passover: it is not enough to see the lamb killed; blood had to be sprinkled on the door: Exo 12:23.

Burial — Rom 6:4; Col 2:12.

Part of a bigger symbol:

• plunged into water = dying with Christ.
• held (briefly!) underwater = buried with him.
• emerging from the water = raised with him.

Death and Life —

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it (Mat 16:25), if we keep it for ourselves we cannot keep it for ever. To willingly lose our life is to surrender it to God’s service, and to exchange our so-called freedom for discipleship. Or, to “voluntarily choose what is good and holy, and reject all that is related to the kingdom of sin.” This is because we recognize that our life has as its object the satisfaction of selfish desires, so we decide to deny it any opportunity of mastery, to crucify it, to bury it. As Jesus was condemned to death at the judgment seat of Pilate, so we condemn ourselves to death at the judgment seat of our own conscience.

Death: Rom 6:6,7; Gal 5:24.

Yet life: Rom 6:8,11; Gal 2:20; Eph 2:1,5; Col 2:12,13.

Some parallels

• Noah’s flood (1Pe 3:21): Gen 7:23.
• At the Red Sea (Egypt died, Israel lived): Exo 14:28,29.
• At Gilgal: Josh 4:1–8:9.
• Cleansing the leper: Lev 14:4-7.

Circumcision —

• Under the law it was a token of covenant status: Gen 17:10,11.
• Like baptism, it was symbolic of disowning the flesh.
• The uncircumcised were unable to eat the passover (like the unbaptized at the breaking of bread): Exo 12:43-48.
• Baptism paralleled with circumcision: Rom 2:29; Phi 3:3; Col 2:11.
• Note Gilgal: Joshua 4:1-8,9; 5:2-9; 10:15,43; 1Sa 11:14,15; 15:33.
• Site of John the Baptist’s work: John 1:28; Mat 3:9.

Washing —

• Baptism cleanses: Acts 22:16; 1Co 6:11; Tit 3:5; Heb 10:22; Rev 1:5; 7:14.
• “He that is bathed needs not save to wash his feet but is clean every whit” (John 13:10).
• Under the Law of Moses, priests were ritually washed before putting on holy garments (we are, in a sense, priests continuously after baptism): Exo 40:12-15, Lev 8:6-9. Aaron washed particularly before changing garments on the Day of Atonement: Lev 16:4.
• Gr “baptizo” occurs twice in LXX; one is 2Ki 5:14 (Naaman washed 7 times in Jordan and was healed from leprosy).

Change of clothes —

• Putting off the old: Rom 13:12; Eph 4:22; Col 2:11; 3:8,9.
• Putting on the new: Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10,12,14.

Pervasive theme in OT; note washing and changing garments above, also:

• Adam and Eve exchanged their own provision (fig leaves) for skins of God’s giving: Gen 3:7,21.
• Joseph and Jehoiachin re-clothed on release from prison: Gen 41:14; 2Ki 25:27-29.
• Elisha rent his own clothes and took up Elijah’s mantle: 2Ki 2:12,13.
• Joshua son of Josedech exchanged filthy garments for new ones: Zec 3:3-5.

In Christ’s parables:

• The wedding feast: Mat 22:11,12 (cp Isa 61:10).
• The old garment and the new piece: Mark 2:21.
• The good Samaritan: Luke 10:30,34.
• The prodigal son: Luke 15:22.

In his miracles:

• Bartimaeus cast away his garment: Mark 10:50.
• Legion clothed: Luke 8:27,35.

Canceling sins —

• Acts 2:38; 22:16; Col 2:11.
• Of John’s baptism also: Luke 1:77; Mark 1:4.

Rebirth —

• A new creature: Rom 6:4; 2Co 5:17; Gal 6:15.
• Born again: John 1:13; 3:3,5; 1Pe 1:3,23; 2:2.
• Renewal of the mind: Rom 12:2; 2Co 4:16; Eph 5:26; Col 3:10; Tit 3:5.
• Note: after “baptizing” himself (LXX) in Jordan, Naaman’s flesh was as a newborn child’s: 2Ki 5:14.

Change of allegiance —

Baptism is typically “into the name” of the Lord. The Greek is ‘eis to onoma’, a term used in Greek banking when a sum of money was placed “in the credit of” another person. This would imply that when baptized we are “made over” to Christ. Also, as truly as a bride takes on the name of her husband, so we take on the name of Christ.

Enrolling in a new family or community —

Through baptism, we become sons and servants of God, join the one body of Christ, become heirs of the promises to Abraham, are lifted into heavenly places: John 1:12; Rom 6:17-22; 1Co 12:13; 15:22; Gal 3:26-29; Eph 2:6,13,19; 3:6; Col 1:13.

Both Old and New Testaments occasionally use the idiomatic expression “upon whom the name of God is called”. When this idea is used with other names it refers to adoption of a new family name, for example: Est 2:14; Gen 21:12; 48:16, Isa 4:1.

With God’s own name it is used of:

• the people: Deu 28:10; 2Ch 7:14; Isa 43:7; 63:19; Jer 14:9;
• Jeremiah himself: Jer 15:16;
• Jerusalem and its people: Jer 25:29; Dan 9:18,19;
• the ark: 2Sa 6:2; 1Ch 13:6;
• the temple: Jer 7:10,11,14,30; 32:34; 34:15; 1Ki 8:43; 2Ch 6:33; and
• certain Gentiles: Amo 9:12.

This is the background to the NT usage, closely linked with the idea of baptism: James 2:7; Acts 15:17 (= Amos 9:12, and note Acts 15:14); Acts 22:16. Note too the name in the forehead of the High Priest: Exo 28:36 (cp Eze 9:4; Rev 14:1).

Baptism, summary

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I. The Importance of Earnest and Reverent Obedience

And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams (1Sa 15:22).

But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you (Jer 7:23).

And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (Luk 6:46).

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him (Joh 14:21).

He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1Jo 2:4).

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. (Ecc 12:13).

II. What Baptism Symbolizes And Accomplishes

1. A cleansing, a washing away — remission — forgiveness of sins

And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord (Act 22:16).

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Act 2:38).

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God (1Co 6:11).

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word (Eph 5:26).

2. A burial and rebirth — a death to the old Adam — a resurrection to newness of life.

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection (Rom 6:3-5).

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead (Col 2:12).

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (Joh 3:3).

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Joh 3:5).

3. A Union with Christ, a partaking of his righteousness and the effects of his sacrifice; a naturalization into the citizenship of the commonwealth of Israel and an heirship of the promises made to the Fathers.

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:26-29).

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is 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 (1Co 12:12-13).

4. A release from the bondage and slavery of Sin; a transfer of masters from the service of Sin unto death to the service of Righteousness unto life.

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For he that is dead is freed from sin (Rom 6:3,4,7).

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 6:11).

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you (Rom 6:17).

Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness (Rom 6:18).

III. Total Immersion In Water Necessary…

1. To fulfill the symbol of burial and resurrection or rebirth (see passages under II, 2 above) 2. As demonstrated by the descriptions and instances of baptism recorded in Scripture.

And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea (Act 8:39-40).

And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins (Mat 3:6).

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: (Mat 3:16).

And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized (Joh 3:23).

3. The actual meaning of the Greek word (baptizo) used in the NT.

(a) Usage of general Greek literature over 2,000 year period. (b) Septuagint translation of 2Ki 5:14 (baptizo) (c) In writing of so-called “Church Fathers” (d) Words used for baptism by early writers in Latin (e) Words used in early translations of Scriptures in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, etc.

IV. Knowledge and Belief of The Gospel An Essential Prerequisite

1. General references to the necessity of belief

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Heb 11:6).

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith (Rom 1:16-17).

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith (Hab 2:4).

That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (2Th 2:12-13).

2. Baptism specifically and inseparably associated with belief

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead (Col 2:12).

The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1Pe 3:21).

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (Mar 16:16).

And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized (Act 18:8).

And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? (Act 16:30).

And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Act 8:36-37).

But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women (Act 8:12).

V. Baptism Obligatory — Not Optional

1. Because of its significance and the emphasis that the Scriptures lay upon what it accomplishes, making salvation contingent upon its observance

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection (Rom 6:5).

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:27-29).

The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1Pe 3:21).

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit (Tit 3:5).

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again (Joh 3:5, 7).

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (Mar 16:16).

2. It is expressly commanded

And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days (Act 10:48).

And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.(Act 22:16).

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Act 2:37-38).

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Mat 28:19).

3. Its necessity proven by invariable example of the NT (see the many passages already adduced).

4. The “One Baptism” an element of the sevenfold “Unity of the Spirit”

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Eph 4:3-6) (GVG).

Baptismal questions

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The following should be a guide only. It is best for both the interviewer and the candidate for baptism to put their thoughts into their own words. If a potential question has already been answered during an earlier exchange, it is not necessary to repeat it.

First and primary question: Why do you want to be baptized? (Acceptable answers involve one’s love for God, and a personal desire and commitment to serve Him. Unacceptable answers: “I’m old enough now.” “It would make my parents (or husband, or wife, or children) happy.” “My friends are getting baptized.”)

1. What is the Bible? A collection of writings by men inspired by God, to write the story of God’s dealings with man, and to write of God’s offer of eternal life.

2. Is there any other direct source of the knowledge about eternal life? No.

3. What was the condition of the original creation, including Adam when he was first created? Perfect, or “very good”. There was no sin or death in the world.

4. What caused Adam to lose this condition? That is, what brought God’s curse upon man and his world? Adam disobeyed God!

5. Does Adam’s transgression affect us? If so, how? Yes, the consequence of Adam’s disobedience is upon all mankind, in our mortal, sinful natures inherited from him.

6. Has God made any provision for our redemption from this curse? Yes, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

7. What is the primary promise God made to Abram? That he and his “seed” would receive the land of Palestine for an everlasting possession.

8. Was this promise made to anyone else? Yes, to hls descendants Isaac and Jacob.

9. Did any of them actually receive this promise? No, they all died in faith, not yet receiving the promise.

10. Who is the “seed” referred to in these promises? Jesus Christ, the descendant of Abraham.

11. How can we inherit these promises? By being baptized into Christ we become spiritually the children of Abraham, and heirs with Christ of the same promise.

12. What is the gospel? The “good news” of the kingdom of God and the name (or purpose) of Jesus Christ.

13. Did God ever have a kingdom on earth before? Yes, the kingdom of Israel. It was ruled first by the judges, then by the kings for about 400 years.

14. What happened to that kingdom? It was first divided and then overthrown, and the people of Israel scattered among the other nations, because of their rebellion against God.

15. What is the promise God made to David, king of Israel?

That his kingdom would be restored and his “seed” would rule over it forever, sitting upon his throne in Jerusalem.

16. Who is the “seed” referred to in this promise? Jesus Christ, the descendant of David.

17. What is the nature of man? Mortal. Physically, he has no superiority over the animals. When his breath leaves him, he dies, and ceases to possess all of his senses.

18. What is the “soul”? The body, the person himself. The entire being.

19. What is the “spirit”? The breath of life within man. Also, his mind or disposition.

2O. Does the Bible teach that men or their “souls” go to heaven at death? No.

21. Does man or his “soul” have any conscious existence in death? No.

22. How many Gods are there? Only one God, the Creator of all things.

23. Who is Jesus Christ? The only-begotten Son of God, born of the virgin Mary.

24. Is Jesus also a man? Yes. He was born with the same mortal, sinful nature which we all possess. Even now, although he is immortal, he is still a man.

25. Are God and His Son the same person, or separate persons of a “trinity”? No, there is only one God!

26. Did Jesus have a pre-human existence? No, except in the mind and purpose of God.

27. Are God and His Son equal in power? No. God is supreme. Any power and authority which Christ now has was given him by his Father.

28. What is the Holy Spirit? God’s power, by which He performs His will.

29. Is the Holy Spirit a separate and co-equal “God”? No, it is simply an extension of the one God.

30. Who or what is the “devil”? The personification of evil or sin, which is part of mortal human nature.

31. While he was mortal, was it possible for Jesus to sin? Yes. Otherwise, his temptation and victory over sin, or the “devil”, would have been unreal and pointless.

32. Why was it necessary in God’s plan that the Savior be a man? So that by perfect obedience he might overcome the “devil” in his own flesh.

33. Why was it necessary that Jesus die? As a perfect sacrifice, to destroy perfectly and absolutely this “devil”, or the power of sin in himself. And as a representative for others, who by faith in him might be forgiven their sins and thus win their own victories over sin.

34. Why did God raise Christ from the dead, and give him eternal life? Because he was perfectly obedient, even to the death of the cross, and therefore the grave could not hold him in death.

35. After his resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven. What is his role now? He is acting as a high-priest and mediator for those who through faith approach God in prayer.

36. Can we pray to God through anyone other than Jesus Christ? No. He is the only mediator between God and man.

31. Did Jesus die because God was angry with mankind? No, he died because God so loved the world that He was willing that His beloved Son should die, so that sinners might believe, repent, and be saved.

38. Who or what is “satan”? Any adversary or enemy (usually, against God).

39. What are “devils” or “demons”? A New Testament way of describing mental illnesses and disorders.

40. What is “hell”? The pit or the grave; in short, the state of the dead

41. Are the wicked tortured forever? No, they simply die without hope. This is an “eternal punishment” because it is eternal death.

42. What is required before baptism? A knowledge and belief of the gospel. This belief should also lead to sincere repentance of past sins.

43. Briefly, what is the gospel? The gospel is the “good news” about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. It is the message that God will fill the earth with His glory in a group of immortal people who will love and obey him. Jesus will establish the kingdom of God upon the earth and rule as king with his saints for a thousand years.

44. What is baptism? Immersion or complete covering by water.

45. Why are we to be baptized in this way? Because it symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

46. Why must we be baptized? It is the only way by which our sins may be washed away and we may put on the name of Jesus Christ.

47. Why must we bear the name of Jesus Christ? So that we may become heirs with him of God’s promise and partake of his righteousness through faith.

48. Are all people who ever lived going to be raised from the dead? No, only those responsible to God by knowledge.

49. What will become of those who live and die without knowledge of the gospel? They will perish. They will not be resurrected.

50 . When will the resurrection take place? At the return of Christ to the earth.

51. What else will Jesus do when he returns? He will assemble the living responsible, together with those who have been raised from the dead. He will judge all the responsible, punishing the unfaithful with eternal death and rewarding the faithful with eternal life.

52. After the righteous are made immortal, what happens? Christ and his saints will establish their rule over the world, by divine force if necessary, and set up the kingdom of God.

53. Who will be the king of this kingdom? Jesus Christ.

54. Who will rule with him? The immortalized saints.

55. Who will be the subjects of this kingdom? The mortal people who are left after the times of trouble.

56. Does the return of the Jews to Israel have any part in God’s plan?

Yes, they will undergo trials; some will repent and be prepared for the coming of Jesus their Messiah, so as to be the “first dominion” of his kingdom.

57. How long will Christ reign? About one thousand years.

58. What takes place after the thousand years? All sin and death will be removed at last, and the earth will truly be filled with God’s glory.

59. When only immortal people are on the earth, why will happen next? Christ will turn the kingdom over to the Father.

60. Who are the angels? The messengers of God. Sometimes the Bible uses the word for mere mortal men, but most often the angels were and are immortal beings from heaven.

61. Do you believe in the scientific theory of evolution?

No.

62. Can we be saved by good works only? No, we are saved by the grace of God through faith.

63. Can we be saved apart from the sacrifice of Christ?

No, it is the only way our sins may be forgiven.

64. Should believers vote or take part in politics? No. Their kingdom is not of this world. They believe that God rules in the kingdom of men, and sets up and removes whomever He pleases; therefore they should not put themselves in the position of opposing the will of their Father in heaven.

65. Should believers bear arms, or serve in the military or police force? No. They should be strangers and pilgrims in this present evil world, not resisting the authority of governments, but also not participating in exercising that authority either.

66. Should believers avenge themselves against wrong, by suing at law or by other means? No. They should “turn the other cheek”, return good for evil, forgive those who wrong them, and even love their enemies.

67. What is our duty toward God and His Son? To love and praise and glorify God through His Son, in all things and at all times. To keep the commandments of Christ to the best of our abilities, out of gratitude for what God has done for us.

68. What is our duty toward the world? To love our neighbors as ourselves, in deeds as well as words. If possible, to teach them the Truth of God.

69. Does anyone possess the Holy Spirit gifts today? No. Those gifts ceased after the Apostles’ days.

70. Whom should a believer marry? Only another believer. We are commanded not to become unequally yoked together with an unbeliever.

71. Should a believer ever seek to be divorced? No. What God has joined, man should not divide.

72. What special ordinance did Christ institute? The Lord’s supper, or the breaking of bread. It is also sometimes called communion.

73. What is the Lord’s supper? The breaking of bread and the partaking of wine in remembrance of Christ.

74. What does this signify? The bread represents the body of Christ; the wine, his shed blood; together, they show forth his death on our behalf, until he comes.

75. How often should we partake of the Lord’s supper? Every Sunday, if possible.

76. Can anyone partake of the Lord’s supper? No, only baptized believers in the true gospel.

77. Why do we insist on breaking bread or communion only with members? Christ did not ask anyone but true believers to so remember him. In this way false doctrines cannot dilute or destroy the true gospel believed among us. Also, by not breaking bread with others who do not believe as we do, we are showing them how important our hope is to us, and encouraging them to learn the same truths.

78. Have you fully considered all the present disadvantages (from a natural point of view) that the Truth will bring upon you? Yes, and I am prepared to accept them.

79. Do you realize the Truth is not just a “religion”, but an entirely different way of life? Yes, and I am prepared to live it.

Bible text, languages

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A. Old Testament

The OT is written mostly in Hebrew, except for the following sections which are written in Aramaic (constituting about one percent of the OT): Gen 31:47 (two words), Jer 10:11, Ezr 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26, and Dan 2:4b-7:28.

1. The languages of the Old Testament

a. Introduction

The Semitic family of languages do not include the oldest known languages — that honor goes to Sumerian, a unique language which is part of no known language family and bears no resemblance to any other known language; it was written with cuneiform characters. The earliest evidence for Semitic tongues are Akkadian texts dating back into the third millennium BC. Semitic is distantly related to the Hamitic family of languages, which includes Egyptian, and so in its earliest roots, the two are combined into what is called Hamito-semitic. At a point in prehistory, they split into what is called proto-Semitic and proto-Hamitic. From these, arise Egyptian in the Hamitic branch, and on the Semitic side, the northwest Semitic languages of Ugaritic, Moabite, Aramaic and Hebrew and the Southeast Semitic languages such as Akkadian (divisible into two dialects, Babylonian and Assyrian). The earlier Semitic languages, such as Akkadian and Ugaritic have a case system which identifies what role a noun is playing in a sentence. That is, a “U” tacked on to the end of the word, as in Shar, the Babylonian word for prince, gives the form Sharu, telling the reader that the word is the subject of the sentence, as in “The Prince hears the Princess”. An “A” tacked on to the end — Shara — makes the word the object, as in “the Princess hears the Prince.” And an “I” tacked on at the end as in Shari makes the word possessive, as in “the Prince of the Princess”.

In later Semitic languages such as Hebrew, the case system has disappeared, so that word order now indicates the job assignments that were previously provided by the case endings. Hebrew is one of the latest of the known Semitic languages. Even Arabic, another Semitic language, appears more ancient in its forms, since it preserves the old Semitic case structure.

The different Semitic languages bear a general similarity with each other, as for instance with the word for “sun”. In Akkadian it is shamash, in Arabic it is shamps and in Hebrew it is shemesh.

b. Hebrew

Hebrew was the language of the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah respectively. It was used by the Jews until the time of the Babylonian captivity, when the language of the court, Aramaic, came more and more to replace it. When the Jewish people returned from the Babylonian captivity around 536 BC the Hebrew language had undergone some significant changes. Aramaic words had been added to the vocabulary, and the alphabet was changed from the Old Hebrew characters to the newer square Aramaic script — which is the form still in use today. After the fall of Jerusalem AD 70 and the subsequent dispersion, Hebrew, already barely more than a liturgical language (used in the Synagogue for reading scripture), ceased to be spoken altogether. Hebrew remained a dead language, known only to scholars until the end of the nineteenth century. With the rise of the Zionist movement in Europe, some Jews started to revive Hebrew as a spoken tongue, so those Jews who moved back into Palestine began speaking to one another in the old Biblical language. Today, the official language of the modern nation of Israel is Hebrew and except for the addition of a few new words to account for technological change — like airplane and automobile and the like — the Modern Hebrew language is virtually identical to that of the Bible.

c. Aramaic

Aramaic, not to be confused with the language spoken by the Arabs today — which is called Arabic — is a Semitic language used by the neo- Babylonians of the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (cp Dan). It became the major language of the ancient Near East and was spoken and written by most nations of the area until the rise of Islam subjugated it and replaced it with Arabic.

The language most commonly spoken in Israel in Jesus’ day was Aramaic and in fact it is the language that Jesus himself spoke. A few snatches are recorded in the NT, but most of what remains are translations of his words into Greek, the language used by the NT writers. They used Greek because it was the language of the Roman Empire and the writers of the NT were concerned that the message of the gospel should get as wide a readership as possible. The translational nature of Christ’s words can be seen, for example, in the wording of the Beatitudes; Luke writes simply “blessed are the poor”, while Matthew writes “blessed are the poor in spirit”. The reason for the slight difference in the wording results from the underlying Aramaic word for “poor”, which has both ideas contained within it; Matthew, therefore, was a bit more precise in his translation, since the Greek word for poor generally — like the English term — refers only to those who lack material benefits.

B. New Testament

The NT is written entirely in Greek, except, as has already been indicated, for a few Aramaic words or phrases: Mat 27:33,46, Mar 5:41; 15:22,34; and Joh 19:17.

Though the native language of the Romans was Latin, the language of the Empire, and especially the eastern half of the empire where the Jews lived, was Greek; the Greeks, though militarily weak, had been culturally powerful, leaving their mark on Roman thinking in everything from their language and theology, to their laws and philosophy. If a person knew Greek, he could get along well in the Roman Empire, just as today, if a person knows English, he’ll do better than a person who doesn’t.

Bible text, manuscripts (NT)

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The New Testament manuscripts go back much closer to the originals than do the Old Testament manuscripts. And there is a wider variety of New Testament manuscript evidence to draw upon.

There are something like 5,000 separate manuscripts of the Greek New Testament in the museums and libraries of the world. Some are only fragments, but many are practically complete. Also there are a great many early copies of the New Testament translated into other languages. In addition to this, a very large part of the New Testament exists in the form of quotations in early Christian writings.

A nineteenth-century scholar, Dean Burgon, counted up all these early quotations that he could find. He reported 19,370 quotations from the Gospels, 14,905 from the Epistles, 1,382 from the Acts of the Apostles and 644 from the book of Revelation. A present-day recount would reveal much larger numbers.

You may wonder what use all these manuscripts are if none of them is accurate. The answer is that by comparing them it is possible to sort out most of the errors, and recover a nearly accurate text. This is very tedious work but it can be done. Fortunately for us, thousands of dedicated men over the past four centuries have given the best years of their lives to this work.

There are two kinds of errors: deliberate ones, and accidental ones. The insertion of the second sentence into 1Jo 5:7 is regarded as a deliberate corruption of the text. Some scribe apparently thought he could improve John’s writing. The spurious nature of this sentence, which appears in the Authorised Version, was discovered a very long time ago. It is omitted from all modern versions.

Accidental slips are often harder to locate, but there are tech-niques for finding them. Names are given to the different kinds of mistakes that can occur. Most of these are almost impossible for the ordinary man to remember. One common form of error is called “homoeoteleuton” (from the Greek for “same ending”). If the same word occurs, say, at the end of line 3 and the end of line 4, it is very easy for the copyist to jump from the end of line 3 to the beginning of line 5. If he does, then that is a homoeoteleuton. Fortunately, it is usually easier to spot where a homoeoteleuton has occurred than to remember what it is called.

Another form of error, also easy to detect, has an unforgettable name: dittography. No prizes are offered for guessing that it means accidentally writing the same word twice.

It soon becomes clear to the scholar working in this field that there are good manuscripts and bad manuscripts. He is able to divide them up into families, and say fairly confidently, for example, that manuscripts X, Y and Z are all copies of the same earlier manuscript. Gradually he ends up with a text which he knows to be more than 99 percent perfect. That is to say, he is practically certain of the complete accuracy of most of it.

Just occasionally there is a word or a phrase about which he cannot be sure. If he is a Bible translator he will probably indicate his uncertainty in a footnote. For example, Mark 1:34 tells us that Jesus “suffered not the devils to speak because they knew him”. The Revised Version of 1885 translates these words in exactly the same way as the Authorised Version. But it tells us in a footnote that after the last word, “many ancient authorities [manuscripts] add ‘to be Christ’.”

This is fairly typical of the uncertainties that exist in the text of our Greek New Testament. They are generally few and far between. They are generally small. And they generally have little effect on the meaning of the passages in question.

(GT ch 17).

Bible text, manuscripts (OT)

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For the Old Testament, the traditional text is what is known as the Masoretic. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who worked diligently between the 6th and 10th centuries AD in Babylonia and Palestine to reproduce, as far as possible, the original text of the OT. Their intention was not to interpret the Bible, but to transmit to future generations what they regarded as the authentic text. Therefore, to this end, they gathered manuscripts and whatever oral traditions were available to them.

They were careful to draw attention to any peculiarities they found in the spellings of words or the grammar of sentences in the OT, and since Hebrew in their day was a dying language, they introduced a series of vowel signs to insure the correct pronunciation of the text, since traditionally, the text was written with consonants only. Among the various systems developed to represent the vowel sounds, the system developed in the city of Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, gained the ascendancy.

The earliest complete copy of the Masoretic text of the OT is located in the St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) Public Library; it was written about 1008 AD.

The Masoretic text is not a single, unbroken thread, but rather a river of manuscripts, with both a western and eastern branch; within the texts labeled “Masoretic” there is a certain amount of variation, and the Masoretes carefully noted the differences in the texts that they used as their sources. Therefore, it must be stressed that the so-called “Textus Receptus” that one may hear of occasionally (especially from those who believe that the King James Version is the only acceptable translation) is mostly a fiction; it is a concept that has little basis in reality beyond wishful thinking.

Remember, too, that English is not the only language into which the Bible has been translated. It has been translated into over 2,000 languages by scholars using the original Greek and Hebrew texts.

The earliest copies of OT books are called the Dead Sea Scrolls, a body of Biblical manuscripts discovered since 1947 inside caves near a place called Qumran, right next to the Dead Sea in Israel. The texts all date prior to 70 AD, the period when the community at Qumran was destroyed by the Romans following the Jewish revolt. Some texts date as far back as 150- 200 BC, based on epigraphic dating and Carbon 14 dating.

Other manuscripts useful for establishing the text of the OT are as follows:

• The Septuagint — a translation of the OT into Greek, made in Alexandria, Egypt about 250 BC. There are several versions, with minor variations among them. They are: the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates to the fourth century AD, the Codex Alexandrinus, which dates to the fifth century AD, and the Codex Vaticanus, also of the fourth century AD.
• The Samaritan Pentateuch. A copy of the first five books of Moses kept by the Samaritans in Samaritan characters. It is notorious for some deliberate alterations designed to legitimize the Samaritan place of worship on Mt Gerizim (cf Joh 4:20).
• Peshitta. The Syriac translation of the OT and the NT. Syriac is an Aramaic dialect. The translation was done sometime between 75 and 200 AD.
• Vulgate. The Latin translation of the OT and the NT was made by Jerome about 400 AD.

Bible, English translations

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The first English translation of the Bible was undertaken by John Wycliffe (1320-1384). By 1380 he had finished the translation of the NT; however, his translation of the OT was incomplete at the time of his death. Friends and students completed the task after his death. His translation was not from the original Greek and Hebrew texts; instead he made use of the Latin Vulgate. Many translations followed:

• William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible again relied heavily on the Vulgate; however, he was a good Greek scholar and thus he did make use of Erasmus’ Greek text and some other helps that had been unavailable to Wycliffe. The NT was completed in 1525 and the Pentateuch in 1530. He was martyred before he could complete the OT.
• Miles Coverdale, a friend of Tyndale, prepared and published a Bible dedicated to Henry VIII in 1535. The NT is based largely on Tyndale’s version.
• Matthew’s Bible appeared in 1537. Its authorship is somewhat unclear; it is probable that it was produced by John Rogers, a friend of Tyndale. Apparently Rogers came into possession of Tyndale’s unpublished translations of the historical books of the OT and so included these in this version, which again rests heavily on the work of Tyndale, as well as Coverdale.
• The Great Bible of 1539 was based on the Tyndale, Coverdale and Matthew’s Bibles. It was a large volume, chained to the reading desk in churches, and from this fact derives its name.
• The Geneva Bible of 1560 was produced by scholars who fled to Geneva, Switzerland, from England during the persecution instigated by Queen Mary. It was a revision of the Great Bible.
• The Bishops’ Bible of 1568 was produced under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Elizabeth I. It is to a large extent simply a revision of the Great Bible, with some influence of the Geneva Bible. It was used chiefly by the clergy and was unpopular with the average person.
• The Douay Bible was a Roman Catholic version translated from the Latin Vulgate. The NT was published at Rheims in 1582 and the OT at Douay in 1609-1610. It contains controversial notes and until recently was the generally accepted English version for the Catholic Church.
• The King James (or Authorized) Version was published in 1611. It was produced by 47 scholars under the authorization of King James I of England. The Bishops’ Bible served as the basis for this version, though the translators did study the Greek and Hebrew texts and consulted other English translations. It was the most popular translation in English for well over three hundred years, undergoing at least three revisions before 1800. The New King James Version appeared in 1982. The NT had been published in 1979. One hundred nineteen scholars worked on the project, sponsored by the International Trust for Bible Studies and Thomas Nelson Publishers. They sought to preserve and improve the 1611 version.
• The Revised Version was published between 1881 and 1885. It was made by a group of English and American scholars. It was to a large extent a revision of the King James translation, though the scholars involved did check the most ancient copies of the original scriptures, using manuscripts that were unavailable at the time the King James Version was produced.
• The American Standard Version of 1900-1901 is the American version of the Revised Version, with those renderings preferred by the American members of the Revision Committee of 1881-1885.
• The Revised Standard Version was published in 1952. In 1928 the copyright of the American Standard Version was acquired by the International Council of Religious Education, which authorized a revision by a committee of 32 scholars. The NT was issued in 1946, the complete Bible in 1952. The copyright is currently owned by the Division of Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. The Revised Standard Version Bible Committee is a continuing body, which is both ecumenical and international, with active Protestant and Catholic members from Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Additional revisions were made in the NT in 1971 and in 1990 the New Revised Standard Version was issued.
• The Berkeley Version was published in 1959. The NT was originally translated into modern English by a single individual, Gerrit Verkuyl in 1945. With a staff of 20 translators, including professors from various Christian colleges and seminaries, all under his direction, a translation of the OT was rendered.
• The Amplified Bible appeared in 1965. It was commissioned by the Lockman Foundation and is unusual — even idiosyncratic — in that it has bracketed explanatory words to try to explain somewhat difficult passages.
• The Jerusalem Bible was published in 1966. It is a Roman Catholic work originally done in French at the Dominican Biblical School in Jerusalem in 1956. The French title was La Bible de Jerusalem. The English version was translated from the original Hebrew and Greek texts, but it follows the French version on most matters of interpretation. It is the only major English translation that makes use of the divine name “Yahweh” in the OT. The translation includes the Apocrypha. A revision called The New Jerusalem Bible came out in 1989.
• The New English Bible was published in 1970. It was produced by a joint committee of Bible scholars from leading denominations in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, assisted by the university presses of Oxford and Cambridge. Twenty-two years were spent in the work of translation, with the NT arriving in 1961. The full Bible includes the Apocrypha. It is printed in paragraphed, single-column format, with verse numbers along the outside margin of the pages. A revision of this translation, called the Revised English Bible, appeared in 1989.
• The New American Standard Bible was published in 1971. It is a revision of the American Standard Version and was commissioned by the Lockman Foundation. A group of Bible scholars worked for 10 years, translating from the original texts and attempting to render the grammar and terminology of the American Standard Version into more contemporary English, except when God is addressed. Then it reverts to King James style language. The NT appeared in 1963.
• The Living Bible appeared in 1971. It is a paraphrase by Kenneth N. Taylor; he sought to express what the writers of scripture meant in the simplest modern English possible. It scarcely needs to be said that sometimes he got it terribly wrong! It is a paraphrase of the American Standard Version; it is not a translation from the original languages.
• Today’s English Version (Good News Bible) was published in 1976. The NT, entitled Good News For Modern Man, was published in 1966 by the American Bible Society. A translation committee of Bible scholars was appointed to work with the United Bible Societies to make a similar translation of the OT. Their objective was to provide a faithful translation into natural, clear, and simple contemporary English. American and British editions of the complete Bible appeared in 1976. In 1995 an updated version was produced, called the Contemporary English Version, which is notable for removing anything that might be misunderstood as anti-semitic from its translation of the NT.
• The New International Version was published in 1978. The Committee enlisted Bible scholars from a broad range of denominations and countries and has become the most widely used of the modern translations.

Bible, King James Version

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As the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) was coming to a close, we find a draft for an act of Parliament for a new version of the Bible: “An act for the reducing of diversities of Bibles now extant in the English tongue to one settled vulgar [common] translated from the original.” The Bishop’s Bible of 1568, although it may have eclipsed the Great Bible, was still rivaled by the Geneva Bible. Nothing ever became of this draft during the reign of Elizabeth, who died in 1603, and was succeeded by James I, as the throne passed from the Tudors to the Stuarts. James was at that time James VI of Scotland, and had been for thirty-seven years. He was born during the period between the Geneva and the Bishop’s Bible.

One of the first things done by the new king was the calling of the Hampton Court Conference in January of 1604 “for the hearing, and for the determining, things pretended to be amiss in the church.” Here were assembled bishops, clergymen, and professors, along with four Puritan divines, to consider the complaints of the Puritans. Although Bible revision was not on the agenda, the Puritan president of Corpus Christi College, John Reynolds, “moved his Majesty, that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because those which were allowed in the reigns of Henry the eighth, and Edward the sixth, were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the Original.”

The king rejoined that he “could never yet see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that, of all, that of Geneva is the worst. I wish some special pains were taken for an uniform translation, which should be done by the best learned men in both Universities [Oxford and Cambridge], then reviewed by the Bishops, presented to the Privy Council, lastly ratified by the Royal authority, to be read in the whole Church, and none other.”

Accordingly, a resolution came forth: “That a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek; and this to be set out and printed, without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England in time of divine service.”

The next step was the actual selection of the men who were to perform the work. In July of 1604, James wrote to Bishop Bancroft that he had “appointed certain learned men, to the number of four and fifty, for the translating of the Bible.” These men were the best Biblical scholars and linguists of their day. In the preface to their completed work it is further stated that “there were many chosen, that were greater in other men’s eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise. Again, they came or were thought to come to the work, learned, not to learn.” Other men were sought out, according to James, “so that our said intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this our kingdom.”

Although fifty-four men were nominated, only forty-seven were known to have taken part in the work of translation. The translators were organized into six groups, and met respectively at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford. Ten at Westminster were assigned Genesis through 2Ki; seven had Romans through Jude. At Cambridge, eight worked on 1Ch through Ecclesiastes, while seven others handled the Apocrypha. Oxford employed seven to translate Isaiah through Malachi; eight occupied themselves with the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation.

Fifteen general rules were advanced for the guidance of the translators:

1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit.
2. The names of the Prophets, and the Holy Writers, with the other Names of the Text, to be retained, as nigh as may be, accordingly as they were vulgarly used.
3. The Old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. the Word Church not to be translated Congregation &c.
4. When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith.
5. The Division of the Chapters to be altered, either not at all, or as little as may be, if Necessity so require.
6. No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution [ie, further explanation], so briefly and fitly be expressed in the Text.
7. Such Quotations of Places to be marginally set down as shall serve for the fit Reference of one Scripture to another.
8. Every particular Man of each Company, to take the same Chapter or Chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himself, where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done, and agree for their Parts what shall stand.
9. As any one Company hath dispatched any one Book in this Manner they shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously, for His Majesty is very careful in this Point.
10. If any Company, upon the Review of the Book so sent, doubt or differ upon any Place, to send them Word thereof; note the Place, and withal send the Reasons, to which if they consent not, the Difference to be compounded at the general Meeting, which is to be of the chief Persons of each Company, at the end of the Work.
11. When any Place of special Obscurity is doubted of, Letters to be directed by Authority, to send to any Learned Man in the Land, for his Judgement of such a Place.
12. Letters to be sent from every Bishop to the rest of his Clergy, admonishing them of this Translation in hand; and to move and charge as many skilful in the Tongues; and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particular Observations to the Company, either at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford.
13. The Directors in each Company, to be the Deans of Westminster, and Chester for that Place; and the King’s Professors in the Hebrew or Greek in either University.
14. These translations to be used when they agree better with the Text than the Bishops Bible: Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s, Geneva.
15. Besides the said Directors before mentioned, three or four of the most Ancient and Grave Divines, in either of the Universities, not employed in Translating, to be assigned by the vice-Chancellor, upon Conference with the rest of the Heads, to be Overseers of the Translations as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the 4th Rule above specified.

The work began to take shape in 1604 and progressed steadily. The translators expressed their early thoughts in their preface as:

“Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,.. but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against, that hath been our endeavor.”

They had at their disposal all the previous English translations to which they did not disdain:

“We are so far off from condemning any of their labors that travailed before us in this kind, either in this land or beyond sea, either in King Henry’s time, or King Edward’s…or Queen Elizabeth’s of ever renowned memory, that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, for the building and furnishing of his Church, and that they deserve to be had of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance.”

And, as the translators themselves also acknowledged, they had a multitude of sources from which to draw from: “Neither did we think much to consult the Translators or Commentators, CHaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek, or Latin, no nor the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch.”

The Greek editions of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza were all accessible, as were the Complutensian and Antwerp Polyglots, and the Latin translations of Pagninus, Termellius, and Beza.

Four years were spent on the preliminary translation by the six groups. The translators were exacting and particular in their work, as related in their preface:

“Neither did we disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered: but having and using as great helps as were needful, and fearing no reproach for slowness, nor coveting praise for expedition, we have at the length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see.”

The conferences of each of the six being ended, nine months were spent at Stationers’ Hall in London for review and revision of the work by two men each from the Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford companies. The final revision was then completed by Myles Smith and Thomas Bilson, with a preface supplied by Smith.

The completed work was issued in 1611, the complete title page reading:

“THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties Special Commandment. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611.”

The New Testament had a separate title page, the whole of it reading:

“THE NEWE Testament of our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST. Newly Translated out of the Originall Greeke: and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties speciall Commandment. IMPRINTED at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611. Cum Privilegio.”

The King James Bible was, in its first editions, even larger than the Great Bible. It was printed in black letter with small italicized Roman type to represent those words not in the original languages.

A dedicatory epistle to King James, which also enhanced the completed work, recalled the King’s desire that “there should be one more exact Translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English tongue.” The translators expressed that they were “poor instruments to make GOD’S holy Truth to be yet more and more known” while at the same time recognizing that “Popish persons” sought to keep the people “in ignorance and darkness.”

The Authorized Version, as it came to be called, went through several editions and revisions. Two notable editions were that of 1629, the first ever printed at Cambridge, and that of 1638, also at Cambridge, which was assisted by John Bois and Samuel Ward, two of the original translators. In 1657, the Parliament considered another revision, but it came to naught. The most important editions were those of the 1762 Cambridge revision by Thomas Paris, and the 1769 Oxford revision by Benjamin Blayney. One of the earliest concordances was “A Concordance to the Bible of the Last Translation”, by John Downham, affixed to a printing of 1632.

The Authorized Version eclipsed all previous versions of the Bible. The Geneva Bible was last printed in 1644, but the notes continued to be published with the King James text. Subsequent versions of the Bible were likewise eclipsed, for the Authorized Version was the Bible until the advent of the Revised Version and ensuing modern translations. It is still accepted as such by its defenders, and recognized as so by its detractors. Alexander Geddes (d. 1802), a Roman Catholic priest, who in 1792 issued the first column of his own translation of the Bible, accordingly paid tribute to the Bible of his time:

“The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every work, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision.”

As to whether the Authorized Version was ever officially “authorized”, Brooke Westcott, one of the members of the committee that produced the Revised Version, and the editor, with Fenton Hort, of an edition of the Greek New Testament, stated that:

“From the middle of the seventeenth century, the King’s Bible has been the acknowledged Bible of the English-speaking nations throughout the world simply because it is the best. A revision which embodied the ripe fruits of nearly a century of labor, and appealed to the religious instinct of a great Christian people, gained by its own internal character a vital authority which could never have been secured by any edict of sovereign rulers.”

This article was taken from the book “A Brief History of English Bible Translations”, by Dr. Laurence M. Vance.

Bible, NIV

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More than 100 scholars from six English-speaking countries, as well as editors and English stylists, worked on the New International Version. The scholars represent more than 20 denominations.

In the 17th century, King James’s translators worked from the Erasmus Greek text of the New Testament. Erasmus had six Greek manuscripts from which to work. NIV translators work from more than 5,000 complete or partial manuscripts and papyri.

It took ten years to complete the NIV translation. The process started in 1968 and finished in 1978. This does not include more than 10 years of planning before 1968.

The system for editing each book is one of the distinctive features of the NIV. The procedure was as follows:

• Initial Translation Team
• Intermediate Editorial Committee
• General Editorial Committee
• Stylist and Critics
• Executive Committee (or Committee on Bible Translation)
• Final Stylistic Review
• Executive’s Committee’s Final Reading

The NIV was created and is maintained with the mandate to translate, accurately and faithfully, the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic Biblical texts into clearly understandable English.

The NIV is the most widely accepted contemporary Bible translation today. More people today buy the NIV Bible than any other English-language translation.

Caveat: In the New Testament, the NIV does have some unfortunate choices, from more obscure ancient manuscripts, that reflect a “trinitarian” bias on the part of the translators. These erroneous translations should be noted and replaced, in most cases, with the alternative renderings from the margin.

This naturally raises the question: “If there is such a problem with the NIV, why use it in the first place?” The answer is: these “problem” passages are easily identified, and can be remedied (as above). On the other hand, the NIV provides what many other versions (especially the KJV) do not, that is: (1) scholarly work of the highest standard, which takes into account all the linguistic discoveries and advances of the past 400 years; and (2) modern renderings that avoid all the archaic words and expressions of older versions (see Lesson, AV difficult words — for examples of this).

(Also see Lesson, NIV, background.)

Bible, selecting a

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For the serious Bible student (or anyone who wants to become a serious Bible student), there are only a few Bible versions that deserve consideration:

1. The King James Version (also known as the Authorized Version) is still much used, and even revered, in Christadelphian circles — although its inadequacies (due primarily to its age) are known and understood. Much of the best Bible study material is based on the KJV, as are the good analytical concordances and lexicons. Many believers, not quite able to tear themselves away from it for more modern (and possibly more accurate) versions, nevertheless supplement their KJV reading and study with occasional reference to good modern versions.

A good study Bible still available within the Brotherhood is the “Interlinear” (KJV and English Revised Version line by line, one under the other), but beware! It requires some practice to read it smoothly.

2. The Revised Standard Version (RSV, 1952) is the earliest of the modern translations still being used in significant numbers. It was intended as a further revision of the KJV and English RV, and is generally respected for its scholarship.

3. The New International Version (NIV, 1978) is perhaps the best translation in American English today. It is close to the Hebrew and Greek text while at the same time reproducing our language as it is spoken today. As an advertisement for the NIV says, “If King James were alive today, he’d be reading the NIV!” (In the New Testament, the NIV does have some unfortunate choices, from more obscure ancient manuscripts, that reflect a “trinitarian” bias on the part of the translators. These erroneous translations should be noted and replaced, in most cases, with the alternative renderings from the margin.)

4. The New American Standard Bible (NASB, 1960) is the most literal, word-for-word translation on the market today — which is not to say it is necessarily the best. Many feel its extreme literalness makes it a poor translation, because its English is consequently choppy and decidedly poor. As a study Bible, however, if not as a reading Bible, it has some appeal among Christadelphians.

And there, probably, the list of recommended versions should end. Other possible versions range from the mediocre at best (New English Bible, Good News Bible, or Today’s English Version) to the very poor (Living Bible, and the various “special sect” translations — like the JWs’ “New World Translation”).

Many of the versions are available in expensive “study editions”, with extensive marginal notes. These notes, while sometimes containing valuable material, can often be very biased and misleading. It would be far better to get a good wide-margin Bible with marginal references, but no notes. These types of Bibles, seen commonly among Christadelphians, are available from various sources in all four recommended translations. Make up your mind to produce your own marginal notes as you study, a practice infinitely better for personal development than relying on the notes of “orthodox” commentators.