Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost, 1st Corinthians 12:3.
I suspect that if I were to travel to Buffalo or Rochester (the two large cities nearest to me), and if I were to interview drunks staggering out of a bar, I could easily get most of them to repeat the words, "Jesus is the Lord". It was not the Holy Ghost that induced them to say those words, it was drunkenness and my prompting.
Does that make the Apostle Paul a liar? Obviously not, a person reciting some creed or being otherwise induced to repeat words is not the bible defintion of saying something by the Holy Ghost. What the Apostle speaks of is a person whose heart has been transformed by the grace of God through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ so that they speak from the heart that Jesus is the Lord.
Romans 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Romans 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Rom 10:11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Romans 10:12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
[This post is not really about the modern soul winner, but we have a whole slew of would be soul winners going about inducing people to pray a preformatted prayer, all the while ignoring every defintion that Jesus Christ ever gave about faith and belief (John 5:44-47). With hearts untouched by grace, minds unconvinced of their unworthiness of life itself, and with the Holy Ghost being short circuited by some well meaning preacher imploring them to pray for salvation in Jesus' name, legions of spiritual zombies are created daily.]
Our King James Bible is a perfectly interwoven testimony from God himself. It is incapable of error. It will outright tell us that Jesus is the Lord. As we explore it, we can become more and more convinced of its infallible depths. Before I speak of one of the great marvels of a King James Bible and of that in a unique way it proclaims that Jesus is the Lord, I want to use the analogy of the human body.
In my 8th grade science class back in 1968, I was taught that the human body contained 104 vestigial organs. Vestigial organs is the term used for organs in the body for which science can not discern a purpose. Therefore, they see them as leftovers from evolution and they see no purpose for them.
Today a search on Google identifies between 7 and 180 of them depending on who makes the judgement. If such a modern scientist were to design a human being, he would make that person without those organs.
I strongly suspect that a century from now, doctors will laugh at the naiveté of such thinking. Just because a scientist cannot discern a reason for something doesn't mean that there isn't a reason. Often times, a particular body function is subtle and a healthy person can live without it. At one time tonsils were thought to be vestigial and doctors yanked them. No doctor lightly removes tonsils today. Though a person can live without them, they have a proven and only recently understood purpose in filtering bacteria.
Most of us have heard or suffer from Smokers' Cough. That is the frequent coughing or clearing of the throat that happens when a smoker has burned off the cilia from his throat and lungs. Our throats were designed by God with thousands of little hairlike fibers (cilia) that gradually and naturally moved flem up the throat. When a smoker has burned them off, he is now forced to cough or to clear his throat more frequently. The smoker is fully alive, but his body has lost some of its cohesion and harmony. It does not function as smoothly anymore.
There are places in a King James Bible which make it unique. Because earlier generations of scholars didn't know the functions of these places, they considered them obsolete or otherwise useless. New versions are printed regularly with those places expunged or altered. Sometimes, King James Bibles are printed with subtle changes because editors can't see the differences.
For the purpose of this blog post, we'll look at Genesis 6:3; And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. Note the word "spirit", it has a lower case "s". Why? At first, it doesn't seem to make sense. After all, the word LORD, is spelled with all capital letters. That means it's Jehovah himself. Why would his spirit have a lower case "s"?
Since the scholars can't answer that question, they have designed bibles without it.
NIV: And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive[a] with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
ESV: Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in[a] man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
NKJV: And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive[a] with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
I have even seen a King James Bible printed by The Sword of the Lord in which they just made every spirit defining deity to have an uppercase "S". They just took every spirit associated with deity and polished it to their limited understanding. Like scientists who lightly label obscure organs as vestigial leftovers from evolution, these men take every nuance of printing and editing they don't understand and chalk them up to error.
Genesis 6:3 has a lower case "s" because Jesus is the Lord. When Jesus Christ walked on this earth he was the Lord. When he died he was the Lord. When he resurrected he was the Lord. He is the Lord today. When he returns he will still be the Lord. The Holy Ghost bears witness to this in our hearts, by outright stating so in scripture, and by subtle nuances that the scholars miss.
When Jesus Christ is spoken of in the gospels, his spirit is mentioned 7 times. In each and every time, it is a lower case spirit. Is he God? Is he the Lord? Yes he is. What is his spirit doing in the gospels? It is striving with man.
And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?, Mark 2:8.
And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation, Mark 2:8.
And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him Luke 2:40.
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight, Luke 10:21.
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost, Luke 23:46.
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, John 1:33.
When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me, John 13:23.
And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man; How I thank God that he did not cease striving with man at the flood! He strove with men throughout the Old Testament, and he strove with men throughout the gospels, and he strives with men today. That lowercase "s" that you see in Luke 23:46, when he yields his spirit to the Father, is the same spirit of which he speaks in Genesis 6:3 when he says, My spirit. Jesus is the Lord.
That is the soul and spirit of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory speaking in Genesis 6:3. In ways that the scholars can't discern, the Lord signals in every fiber of a King James Bible that Jesus is the Lord.
Question: If the new versions uniformly take every spirit that is deity and render its spelling with an uppercase "S" (and they do), why do they uniformly make the seven aforementioned verses in the gospels about the spirit of Jesus Christ to be lowercase in their supposedly accurate translations? What does that say about them? Do they really believe that Jesus is the Lord?
I am reminded of a man in divorce court who brings out Valentine day cards professing love for his wife to prove that he loves her. As she displays all of the proofs of other places wherein he has hurt her by ignoring her or outright refusing his love, the man's lawyer can only hope that the judge is stupid enough to accept the few places wherein the man professed love as proof.
I would hope that any search made by my heirs of my thoughts and intentions towards my wife would uniformly express my utter love and devotion for her. I would hope that it wouldn't be a hodge podge of contradictory statements and glaring omissions at crucial times. As I search these new versions, I see occasional references that unmistakably identify the deity of Jesus Christ, but I also see the glaring omissions and subtle changes that prove that the Holy Ghost had no hand in their translation.
Just as King David who penned, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, Psalms 139:14, would mock any effort by a modern day Dr. Frankenstein attempting to compose a human body with his limited understanding of why certain things are even in a body, I mock the work of men who seek to tell us what God said, but who when they read a perfect and complete revelation of God in a King James Bible, do not recognize it for what it is.