"Pilgrimettes"  From  THE  PILGRIM

WHAT... is "KING  JAMES ONLYISM ?"  Does "KJV-Onlyism" REALLY have any Relevance with the K.J.V. Bible ??    by  BOB  L.  ROSS

          When I first heard of "King James-Onlyism" a few years ago, I thought it really involved the King James Version of the Bible issued in 1611, later being known as the "Authorized Version" since it was the "official" version "appointed" by the Church of England "to be read in the churches" of that denomination, and it was the version commissioned by King James, "Defender of the Faith" and Head of the English "Church." However, the more I have studied the issue and read from the "KJV-Onlyites," the more I am convinced that "King James-Onlyism" has very little, if anything, to do with the King James Bible.

          The fact is, the more "militant" advocates of "King James-Onlyism" are veritable HERETICS when measured by the teachings of the King James Bible, the views held by its Translators, and the views of Bible doctrine set forth by the Confessions of Faith of Baptist and the Protestant Denominations.

          Note the following heresies of "KJV-Onlyism," as set forth by most members of this cultic philosophy:

(1)  Only ONE English translation ["A.V. 1611"] is the preserved Word of God. BUT — the  KJV  edition  being  used  today  is  actually  the  6th  revision  since  1611 !

          This bias is contrary to the views of the King James Translators themselves and ALL professing Christian denominations, including all Baptist Confessions of Faith, and is plainly a modern innovation — except, of course, for old-line Roman Catholicism which taught that the Latin Vulgate was the "one-and-only" Bible. Thus, this "one-&-only" theory is Romanism under another garb — so-called "Bible-believing" (KJV-Only) churches, papers and preachers.

(2)  No one has any "right" to do any further study of the Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts and to make any new translations, not even any "improvements."

          We are told that "God closed the book" on any more translation from Hebrew and Greek into English as of 1611. Any further translation since 1611 is "of the Devil." [Peter Ruckman] Such an idea is even contrary to what the KJV Translators themselves stated in their "Translators to the Readers" preface printed in the older KJV editions, not to mention the fact that there is no "authority" for such an idea other than the "KJV-Onlyite" cultists themselves — kinkos like "Possel" Peter Ruckman who claims he "corrected 1600 years of scholarship" and "restored the missing link" of "Final Authority."  The "final authority" for such quackery is "quack" Ruckman and his fellow "quackers."

(3)  Denial of the ETERNAL SONSHIP of Jesus Christ and other doctrines taught in the KJV.

          I have written several articles (available on request) which expose the fact that militant "KJV-Onlyites" deny the KJV doctrine and the view held by its Translators on the SONSHIP of Christ and the Trinity. Quotes from Peter Ruckman, Gail Riplinger, Joe Chambers, and others plainly deny the Eternal Sonship of Christ as it is presented in the KJV and in the "Articles of Religion of the Church of England," the church of the Translators.

          Many "King James Onlyites" believe that Jesus is the "Son of God" because of His being incarnated in the flesh, whereas Baptists and "creedal Christianity" (Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, etc.) hold that He is the ETERNAL Son of God and that He is the "Son of Man" by the incarnation.

          Many "KJV-Onlyites" openly denounce the Confessional / Creedal statements of Baptists and others, mocking them as "Alexandrian cultism" and "dead orthodoxy." Great preachers of the past — yea, even respectable scholars — are denounced as "apostates" and "members of the Alexandrian cult" or the "New Age Movement." Even C. H. Spurgeon is said by Ruckman to have been "controlled by Satan," "lied to the Holy Ghost," and was "killed" by God [!] as a consequence of NOT being a "KJV-Onlyite!" [Bible Believer's Bulletin, August 1991]

          Why does Ruckman say this?  Answer: because Spurgeon used and occasionally preached from the English Revised Version... [!] [released in 1881]  

          Ruckman wrote:  "Satan filled his [Spurgeon's] heart to lie to the Holy Ghost for the benefit of the Scholar's Union in his day" (BBB, pg. 17). So if one is NOT "KJV-Only," based on Ruckman's "Final Authority" intellect, you > might / could / would / will / have < "lied to the Holy Spirit," be "controlled by Satan," & be "killed by God." [!]

          One really has to have a cultic mentality to entertain such heresy, and it perhaps exemplifies a reprobate mind which is the result of denying the Son of God.

          Paradoxically, in the very same article (8/91), Ruckman says "the founder of the 'King James Onlyism' cult" was "Charles Haddon Spurgeon" (again, pg. 17). This is due to Ruckman (like David Otis Fuller and others), doing the "twist" to Spurgeon's views on "the Bible," to that of "the KJV," since Spurgeon "used" the KJV "Bible" ...SEE? And, did you notice Ruckman's reference to the "King James Only CULT?" With "Dr." Peter Ruckman, we are regularly treated to the CULT LEADER'S INCREDIBLE IDEAS!

         Here's Ruckman again — Dr. Revisionist — "That was Charles Haddon Spurgeon waving a King James Bible at his congregation and telling them that he saw God's Book and they could read it... Why, you bunch of conceited asses, Spurgeon was the most radical 'Ruckmanite' that ever lived on the face of this earth if you accept the statements of his regenerated nature." [Bible Believer's Bulletin, June 1989, pg. 12]

           Spurgeon Readers easily see the lies of Ruckman presented here — as Doug Kutilek has well documented in his expose' of the treatment to Spurgeon's views by KJV-Onlyite David Otis Fuller. ["Spurgeon & Bible Translations: the Abuse Continues," Baptist Biblical Heritage, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring, 1990, published later in booklet form as An Answer to David Otis Fuller by Pilgrim Publications] (see excerpt below)

          Like all believers who study and discern the Word of God (by the will and strength of the Holy Spirit), C. H. Spurgeon did NOT believe Bible "translations" to be "inspired!"  

He said of Holy Scripture, "It is a book pure in the sense of truth, being without admixture of error. I do not hesitate to say that I believe that there is no mistake whatever in the original Holy Scriptures from beginning to end. There may be, and there are MISTAKES of translation — for translators are NOT INSPIRED — but even the historical facts are correct... there is not an error in the whole compass of them. These words come from him who can make no mistake, and who can have no wish to deceive his creatures." [from The Bible Tried and Proved MTP Vol 35, Year 1889, pg. 257, Psalms 12:6]

[Below, more Spurgeon Views on God's Word — Holy Scripture — & the Translations of it, from  "Spurgeon & Bible Translations: the Abuse Continues" — and in booklet form as  An Answer to David Otis Fuller, by Pilgrim Publications, $ 3 postpaid]

"Believers in verbal inspiration should be studiously careful to be verbally correct. The gentlemen who see errors in Scripture may think themselves competent to amend the language of the Lord of hosts; but we who believe God, and accept the very words He uses, may not make so presumptuous an attempt. Let us quote the words as they stand in the best possible translation, and it will be better still if we know the original, and can tell if our version fails to give the sense." [Greatest Fight in the World  book  pg. 23]

"Do not needlessly amend our authorized version. It is faulty in many places, but still it is a grand work taking it for all in all, and it is unwise to be making every old lady distrust the only Bible she can get at, or what is more likely, mistrust you for falling out with her cherished treasure. Correct where correction must be for truth's sake, but never for the vainglorious display of your critical ability." [ Commenting and Commentaries pg. 31]

"It is to me a matter of congratulation that we shall succeed in building in this city a Grecian place of worship. My notions of architecture are not worth much, because I look at a building from a theological point of view, not from an architectural one. It seems to me that there are two sacred tongues in the world. There was the Hebrew of the old, and I doubt not that Solomon adopted Jewish architecture for the Temple — a Hebrew form and fashion of putting stone together in harmony with the Hebrew faith. There is but one other sacred language — not Rome's mongrel tongue, the Latin — glorious as that may be for battlecry, it is of no use for preaching the gospel. The other sacred language is Greek, and that is dear to every Christian's heart. Our fullest revelation of God's will is in that tongue; and so are our noblest names for Jesus. The standard of our faith is Greek — and this place is to be Grecian. I care not that many an idol temple has been built after the same fashion. Greek is the sacred tongue, and Greek is the Baptist's tongue; we may be beaten in our own version, sometimes — but in Greek, never. Every Baptist place should be Grecian — never Gothic.  We owe nothing to the Goths as religionists. We have a great part of our Scriptures in the Grecian language, and this shall be a Grecian place of worship — and God give use the power, and life of that master of the Grecian tongue, the apostle Paul, that here like wonders may be done by the preaching of the Word as wrought by his ministry!" [ Autobiography  Vol 2, pgs. 327-328.]

"That was a grand action of old Jerome, when he laid all his pressing engagements aside to achieve a purpose to which he felt a call from heaven... Away he went with his manuscripts, and prayed and labored, and produced a work — the Latin Vulgate — which will last as long as the world stands; on the whole a most wonderful translation of Holy Scripture." [ Lectures to My Students  Series I, pg. 51]

"I feel vexed with the fellow who chopped the Bible up into chapters; I forget his name just now**, and I am sure it is not worth recollecting. I have heard that he did the most of his carving of the New Testament, between London and Paris, and rough work he made of it. Surely he was chaptering the Gospel of Matthew while he was crossing the Channel, for he has divided it in such queer [unusual] places." [from Harvest Men Wanted MTP Vol 19, Year 1873, pg. 466, Matt. 9:37-38, 10:1]

[** actually it was Sir Robert Stephens; he was the first to divide any part of the Bible into verses, in 1551. Stephens did it just 300 years after the Greek New Testament was divided into verses in 1560 at the appearance of the Geneva Bible.]

"Dear friends, the most of my text will be found in our Old Version [KJV]; but for once I shall ask you to look elsewhere for a part of it. A genuine fragment of inspired Scripture has been dropped by our older translators, and it is too precious to be lost... The half lost portion of our text is restored to us in the Revised Version. Never did a translation of the New Testament fail more completely than this Revised Version has done as a book for general reading; but as an assistant to the student it deserves honorable mention, despite its faults. It exhibits here and there special beauties, and has, no doubt, in certain places brought into notice words of sacred Scripture which had fallen out...

 ...We have a notable instance in my present text [to the KJV, the RV adds the words to 1 John 3:1, "And such we are"]. The word "such" is not in the original. We therefore leave it out, and we get the words, "and we are." There are only two words in the Greek — "and we are." That the addition is correct I have not the slightest doubt. Those authorities upon which we depend — those manuscripts which are best worth of notice — have these words; and they are to be found in the Vulgate, the Alexandrian, and several other versions. They ought never to have dropped out. In the judgment of the most learned, and those best to be relied on, these are veritable words of inspiration. So far as doctrine is concerned, it does not matter whether they are or are not in the original text, because we get the same words farther on." [from And We Are, A Jewel from the Revised Version MTP Vol 32, Year 1886, pgs. 673-674, 1 John 3:1]

When the English Revised Version New Testament appeared in 1881, Spurgeon did not heap scorn upon it as some did then and as some do today. In fact, from 1881 on, Spurgeon not infrequently expressly referred to the Revised English translation, commending it either in text or translation or both. In 1881, the very year the revision appeared, Spurgeon preached a sermon in which he expressly refers to the new Revised Version, noting its difference in text from the KJV and acknowledging the RV as here correct; he then lays down some principles regarding the questions of the text and translation of Scripture to which all Baptist ought to give hearty assent.  His sermon text is part of Isaiah 61:1, "He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted..." —

"I intended to have preached from these words in Luke 4:18, but when I looked at the Revised Version and found that the words were not there at all I was somewhat startled. I began to ask whether the omission was a correct one or not — and without making pretence to scholarship — I feel convinced that the revisers are acting honestly in leaving it out. It was not in the original manuscript of Luke, but probably some pious person added it with the intention of making the quotation more complete. Whatever the intention may have been, and however natural the added words may appear, it is a pity that the unknown brother ventured to improve that which was perfect from the beginning...

 ...Concerning the fact of difference between the Revised and Authorized Versions, I would say that no Baptist should ever fear any honest attempt to produce the correct text, & an accurate interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. For many years Baptists have insisted upon it that we ought to have the Word of God translated in the best possible manner, whether it would comfirm certain religious opinions and practices, or work against them. All we want is the exact mind of the Spirit, as far as we can get it. Beyond all other Christians we are concerned in this, seeing we have not other sacred book; we have no prayer book or binding creek, or authoritative minutes of conference — we have nothing but the Bible — and we would have that as pure as ever we can get it. By the best and most honest scholarship that can be found we desire that the common version may be purged of every blunder of transcribers, or addition of human ignorance, or human knowledge, that so the Word of God may come to us as it came from his own hand." [from Heart-Disease Curable MTP Vol 27, Year 1881, pgs. 341, 342-3, Isaiah 61:1]

[Spurgeon comparing John Bunyan with the KJV]  "It is idle merely to let the eye glance over the words, or to recollect the poetical expressions, or the historic facts; but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models, and, what is better still, your spirit is flavoured with the words of the Lord.  

I would quote John Bunyan as an instance of what I mean. Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself. He had studied our Authorized Version, which will never be bettered, as I judge, till Christ shall come; he had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim's Progress — that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, 'Why, this man is a living Bible!' Prick him anywhere — his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him.  He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God. I commend his example to you, beloved, and, still more, the example of our Lord Jesus. If the Spirit of God be in you, he will make you love the Word of God; and if any of you imagine that the Spirit of God will lead you to dispense with the Bible, you are under the influence of another spirit which is not the Spirit of God at all. I trust that the Holy Spirit will endear to you every page of this Divine Record, so that you will feed upon it yourselves, and afterwards speak it out to others. I think it is well worthy of your constant remembrance that, even in death, our blessed Master showed the ruling passion of his spirit, so that his last words were a quotation from Scripture — "It is finished. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." [from The Last Words  of Christ on the Cross MTP Vol 45, Year 1899, pg. 495, Luke 23:46, Psalms 31:5, Acts 7:59]

In the "light" of these actual quotes by Spurgeon, and those above by Ruckman regarding his "Read" of Spurgeon's views... I have discerned and have little doubt about Ruckman demonstrating the marks of being a "heretic!" Like Barney Fife said of Ernest T. Bass [The Andy Griffith Show], "He's a NUT!"

(4)  "Free Willism" of the Pelagian—Arminian variety is invariably the thinking of  "KJV-Onlyites."

          I don't know a single "Calvinist" who is a "KJV-Onlyite." The KJV Translators, of course, were generally "Calvinists." Yet many modern "KJV-Onlyites" are the rankest of "free-willers," and Ruckman even claims that people in the Old Testament were saved by works and during the Tribulation people will be saved by works! He even denies that Jesus and Peter preached salvation by grace, as this "began" with Paul! He even denies that Abraham and other Old Testament saints were "born again!" He says "only a Baptist" would teach such!

          I don't know a single KJV doctrine which is accurately believed by Ruckman and his disciples! There is a "fly in the ointment" on every single doctrine which they teach. Thus, I am more than ever convinced that "KJV Onlyism" is but a "face," a "mask," for a twisted, distorted, perverted "head" behind the mask. The King James Version itself has NOTHING to do with "KJV-Onlyism" — no more than the "Pope" has to do with Simon Peter or "the Virgin Mary" has to do with our Lord's human mother! We have numerous materials available on KJV heresies etc... see the LIST.

         Further, Translation often does not determine the meaning which is accepted and advocated by the reader as being Bible doctrine. For example, the Roman Catholics understand the "bread and wine" of the Lord's Supper to be the real flesh and blood of Jesus where as Baptist (and many others) believe the "bread and wine" are REPRESENTATIVE of the flesh and blood of Jesus. The "Church of Christ" interprets water baptism as being a "condition" of one's receiving the actual forgiveness of sins, whereas Baptists believe that water baptism is a ceremonial act, representative in nature.   

         "Grace" appears in most translations, but many put forth theories which undermine what others believe to be the true grace of God. In fact, many of those who "howl" the loudest about "God's Infallible Word" are also the loudest for Arminianism on the "free will of man" in salvation. I just wish that the "King James Only" advocates preached THE KJV on SALVATION BY GRACE as widely as they promote their "hobby horse." I wish they knew half-as-much about grace as they think they know about what constitutes the Word of God.

          When "Possel" Peter Ruckman tells you that "men will be saved by keeping the Law in the Tribulation period," you know that he is ignorant of the KJV's doctrine of man's depravity and salvation from sin. He may hold to some theory about the KJV as a translation which appeals to some, but he knows nothing about the KJV's doctrine if he thinks any one was ever, or will ever be, saved any other way than the one way of salvation from Genesis thru Revelation.

         So — just because a man cries out loud and long about how strongly he believes the KJV is "the Word of God," that doesn't mean he knows, believes, and preaches the doctrine of the KJV. "Charismatics" may put on a "great show in the flesh," but that doesn't mean their claims are for real. "Campbellites" may claim to be the one-and-only "Church of Christ," but that doesn't make them so. The "Pope" of Rome may claim to be the "Vicar of Christ" on earth, but that doesn't mean it's so.

written by  Bob L. Ross

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THE  BIBLE  —  "RESTORED ?"

         A reader sent us an item on the wwweb entitled "Refuge King James Bible Church." This item tells of a church in Arlington, Texas which believes the KJV is the "restored" Bible. It says, "We believe God prophesied that he would restore the Bible in universal language of the end times," and that this "restoration comes by Resurrection."

         Evidently, they believe that since there are "no original manuscripts," the Bible "died" and then was "resurrected" with the KJV. This is similar to the Campbellite ["Church of Christ"] theory about the "restoration of the church" — it supposedly died-out, then was "restored" by the Campbellite movement of the early 1800's.

         I have noticed that the "restoration" theory has often been a popular "explanation" for cultic ideas. One comes up with a wierd idea, alleges it was once believed but lost-out to "apostacy," making a "restoration" necessary. I have also noticed that such "restorers" develop a cultic following which spends its time and effort "proving" itself to be the "one-and-only" as to having "the truth." It's an old game — only the "format" changes from time-to-time.