IITim.iii.16. Either God is almighty and is able to do this or His is not. The modernists,

and alas many of them are Christian leaders and teachers, deny the infallibility of the

sacred Scriptures, and therefore they have no sure ground for their faith, for if the Bible is

only inspired in parts, who is to decide without any doubt which are these parts and

which are not? They are forcibly thrown back on fallible human opinion where there is

no agreement. The Apostle Paul taught that the Word of God is the `sword of the Spirit'

(Eph. 6: 17), the one offensive weapon permitted to the believer, sufficient to overcome

all the attacks of Satan, and we have the divine example of the Saviour's use of it three

times in the wilderness so effectively that the devil retired defeated (Matt. 4: 1-11).

The modernist has a broken sword in his partly inspired Bible, one that is utterly

useless to foil the great deceiver of mankind. The most impressive fact to all who

sincerely trust in the Saviour and who seek to follow Him faithfully is His attitude to the

Scriptures. This was always one of complete reverence and acceptance. Not once did He

suggest that any part of the O.T. was untrue. On the contrary He declared "Thy Word is

Truth" (John 17: 17) and stated that it cannot be broken, and every jot and tittle must be

fulfilled (John 10: 35; Matt. 5: 17, 18).  He pointed to the truth of the Pentateuch as a

prelude to belief in Himself (John 5: 46, 47), and accused His enemies of being in error

because of their ignorance of the Scriptures (Mark 12: 24).

Surely no one has the right to name the Name of Christ and call himself a Christian,

who does not accept all that the Saviour taught. E. K. Simpson was quite right when he

stated that the modern spirit of license rises in revolt against a fully inspired Bible, for

once this is accepted, then one's own thoughts and ideas must be subjected to its divine

teaching, and this obedience is something that the pride of man will not allow. He must

be able to bring in his own opinions and have the last word in his beliefs, or it would be

better to describe them as his unbeliefs.

We would point out, in order to avoid misunderstanding, that the word `God-breathed'

as Paul used the term, referred to something already in existence, namely the O.T.

Scriptures and the N.T. as far as it had been written. This was God's Word written as far

as he was concerned and this was what he was commending to Timothy. It should be the

same to us also who profess to follow him even as he followed Christ. It cannot refer to

future translations, some of which were not made for over 1,000 years later, nor does it

mean that all that is contained in the Bible is inspired. We have the words of Satan in the

prologue to the book of Job. Often we read of the sayings and doings of those who were

the enemies of God. Neither of these could be `inspired', but the account of them is, and

therefore is true.

Regarding translations, we should be thankful for faithful scholars, men of God like

Dr. E. W. Bullinger, Charles H. Welch, F. F. Bruce and others who have laboured to

give us accurate versions in our own language. The scholars who gave us our A.V.

recognized the originals to be the Word of God and, as Hebrew and Greek scholars,

made their translation from the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, having regard also to

the versions already made, especially Tyndale's, which greatly influenced them.