As I go on, in the remaining time I've been asked if I would give some explanation of the position of the Trinitarian Bible Society regarding why it is that we only distribute and print the authorized version in the Word of God and why it is that we do all our translation work of the New Testament from what is known as the Textus Receptus or the Received Text. Now, this would normally take me five one-hour sessions I've got 15 minutes, so I'll do my best to cover it in 15 minutes. But what we need to realize, and I trust I've brought that out already, that our concern primarily is for the Lord Jesus Christ, for the glory of the Savior himself. And I believe that the modern translations based on a different Greek New Testament text to the King James Version they dilute, they water down in many, many places the doctrine of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The question our Lord posed to the Pharisees of old in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 22, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? And I want to look at that in a few moments. But when we compare the textual basis of the New Testament of the Authorized Version with that of the modern translations, I hold in my hand a Greek New Testament published by the Trinitarian Bible Society. This is the one that was printed many years ago. It represents the received text or the textus receptus. And there are 5,488 Greek manuscripts, so I am told, of either just part or of the whole of the New Testament. and they are kept in various libraries and universities and museums throughout the Western world. And something like 95% of them would belong to this Greek New Testament type. Now this can be traced to the city of Antioch. And it is most significant that we read of Antioch in the Acts of the Apostles. It was where the Jews went preaching the gospel as far as Antioch. It was where the disciples were first called Christians. It was where Barnabas went to seek for Saul and when he had found Saul he brought him back to the church at Antioch where for over 12 months the Apostle ministered to the church at Antioch. And the very first missionary journey that is recorded in the history of the Christian Church, began from Antioch. The Holy Ghost said in Acts 13, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Incidentally, the Apostle is still called Saul three years after he was converted. But it was there at Antioch, and that became the center of the Greek speaking church. So any manuscripts that can be traced to Antioch, surely we can rely upon those. Because the Lord declared that He would preserve His word. Many times in the scriptures we are told that. In Isaiah chapter 59 for example, and verse 21, we are told there, As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed. Seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever. Master John Calvin says on that verse, the Lord here promises two things to the church. First, the church will always have the presence of the Holy Spirit. And second, the church will always have the pure word of God. And we need to remember that. And in the Psalm 100 we read, for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. In other words, there will never be a generation that is bereft of the pure and uncorrupted Word of God. The Lord will watch over His Word with a fatherly care, lest he be corrupted by the fraud of man or the cunning of Satan and the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts belong to that text type. But I have in my left hand a different Greek New Testament cobbled together by Westcott and Hort in the 19th century and that can be traced to the city of Alexandria in northern Egypt. Just a handful of so-called early manuscripts can be traced to Alexandria, particularly Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. The two men that put that together, they said of this that this is vile and villainous and their aim was to rid the church of that. Now Alexandria, we know from church history, there was a catechetical school established there as early as 152 AD. And the very first principal of that school was Clement of Alexandria, an early church father, but his views concerning the Trinity were somewhat heretical. He taught that there was a graded hierarchy in the Trinity, that Jesus Christ the Son is not co-equal with the Father, a graded hierarchy. And he had a pupil called Oregon, Adamantus Oregon, who succeeded Clement as the principal of that catechetical school. And Oregon took that teaching further. Oregon taught that Christ had no divinity of his own. He borrowed it. He derived it from the Father. He had many other obscure views as well. But Oregon had a pupil by the name of Dionysius who was in turn to replace Oregon as the principal. And Dionysius was to become the Bishop of Alexandrium. And Dionysius carried that teaching further He taught that Christ was a created being, that he had a beginning. And that gave rise to several heresies, particularly Arianism, rejecting the doctrine of the eternal Godhead of Jesus Christ the Son, rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity. Now I say that because that handful of so-called ancient Greek manuscripts, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, they are traced. to Alexandria, which had become a center of heresy. Whereas the received text can be traced to Antioch, the center of the apostolic labors of Paul, the birthplace of missionary endeavor, and the center of the Greek-speaking church. So we ought to view with suspicion anything that comes from Alexandria, in terms of textual matters, and view with great favor that which comes from Antioch. Now, what are the differences? I don't have time to go into all of them, but I just want to turn you to a couple of verses to show you the difference. Incidentally, if you were to count the Greek words in both of those, this one would have 2,886 words less. So the two cannot both be right. Either this is guilty of adding 2,886 words, or this one is guilty of removing 2,886 words. And we are not to add to the Word of God. We are not to take away from the Word of God. And my dear friend, William Tyndale, I call him my friend, he said, I call God to record against the days you'll all stand before him, that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience. We are to be captive to the Word of God. So let me just show you a couple of verses in the time that we have, 1 Timothy 3, verse 16. A verse that relates to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, six things concerning the Lord Jesus. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." And it's that first statement I draw your attention to. He tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is God, manifest in the flesh. And that's a remarkable statement. And Paul tells us this is without controversy. This is not something we discuss. It's not something we debate. This is something that needs to be declared, that the Lord Jesus Christ, He is God, manifest in the flesh. And where is it without controversy? Verse 15, In the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. I did not have the privilege of being brought up in a Christian home. And I never went to Sabbath school. For the first 19 years of my life, I was utterly and entirely without any knowledge of the Scriptures at all. Then someone put a Bible in my hand and challenged me to read the Bible. And I began to read the King James Version. Thank God it was the King James Version. And as I read the Word of God, the Word of God was laying hold of me. And for two years, not attending church, not listening to sermons, not reading theological treatises, I was reading the Word of God over and over and over again. And shortly before I was converted in 1968, there was one doctrine that completely confused me. The person of Jesus Christ. Who is this man? And then I read in John 14, Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God. Believe also in me. And I saw immediately that Jesus Christ is divine, or it would be blasphemy for any man to utter such words. You believe in God, believe also in me. And then shortly afterwards, I was converted by the grace of God. But here is this remarkable statement concerning the Saviour. He is God, manifest in the flesh. He is perfect man. He is perfect God. And these two perfect natures in the one glorious, wonderful, complex person, the Lord Jesus Christ. God manifest in the flesh, without controversy. But the Alexandrian text, which is the basis of the majority of the modern English translations, simply changes that on the basis of one Greek manuscript, and it reads, Great is God's mystery, He appeared in the flesh. We are simply told He appeared, no longer that He is God manifest in the flesh, we are simply told He appeared in the flesh. Now what's the difference? Well surely the difference is obvious. Because I appear in the flesh before you this afternoon. And each one of you appears in the flesh. We have a soul, we have an inner man which appears in the outer body. The outer man. So what they are telling us is a statement of the obvious. But what I want to know is, is Jesus Christ God manifest in the flesh? And I have no way of knowing in the modern versions at that key verse which is the proof text for the deity of Christ in the Westminster Confession of Faith and in other of those Reformed confessions. So let me turn you now to another verse. I turn you for example to Romans 4 Romans 14, verse 10. Romans chapter 14, verse 10. The Apostle Paul makes a statement at the end of verse 10. For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. that is perfectly consistent with the teaching of the New Testament and of our Lord. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. Then having made that statement, he makes a quotation from the Old Testament from Isaiah chapter 45. As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So why does Paul make that quotation from the Old Testament? He is going to prove that Jesus Christ is God. And that statement comes from Isaiah 45 and verse 23. But six times in Isaiah 45, we have these words, I am the Lord, and there is none else. And in verse 22, Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. And then immediately the quotation that Paul takes, I have sworn by myself the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. So there in the context of Isaiah chapter 45, to whom will every knee bow, to whom will every tongue confess? It is to God, beside whom there is none else. So now Paul takes that quotation. He tells us we stand before the judgment seat of Christ. He takes that quotation from Isaiah 45 in verse 11, and then verse 12 is the Apostle's conclusion. So then, every one of us shall give account of himself to God. You see what Paul has done. He has proven that Jesus Christ, before whose judgment seat we stand, is God. but the Alexandrian text based on two Greek manuscripts, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Change verse 10. Instead of Christos, it's Theos. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. So Christ is removed from the equation altogether. And it now means that Paul is doing the most ridiculous thing imaginable for a great theologian as he was. he is seeking to prove that God is God. But of course he doesn't have to prove that. On the basis of Romans 1, verse 20 onwards, he does not have to prove that God is God. And I wouldn't waste a minute of my time seeking to prove to a so-called atheist the existence of God. Pointless. I just preach. And so here we have this title of Christ removed from the Alexandrian text. We believe that the received text which underlies the King James Version New Testament is that which Almighty God has preserved as he promised he would do so through every generation and that the King James Version which is translated from that and from the Hebrew Masoretic is still the most accurate and most reliable version in our English language. Well, I've only been able to give a cursory look at the issues, but I would recommend some books to you, some booklets that the Society produced. The Lord Gave the Word by the Reverend Malcolm Watts, the Chairman of the Trinitarian Bible Society. There are copies I see over there. And then an excellent article here by the Reverend David Blunt, which Bible version, does it really matter, where he looks at some of the textual issues and looks at key verses. And then this, yes there are copies of that there, a textual key to the New Testament which lists all the verses that are missing or significantly changed in the modern versions simply because they have used manuscripts by and large that come from Alexandria and not from Antioch. Well thank you for listening.