Not to derail the thread, but I do find it paradoxical that those who speak against Lordship Salvation also make no bones about saying that the Authorized KJV is the ONLY Bible translation that the English-speaking world should use. And that anyone who uses any other translation is in league with Satan.
Well perhaps not consciously "in league with Satan" but certainly unconsciously promoting his agenda. Satan's agenda from the very beginning was to cast aspersions on God and cast doubt on the Word of God. Hence "YEA HATH GOD SAID...? (Gen 3:1). What many (if not most) Christians have failed to grasp as yet (and this is tragic) is:
1. Scripture = The Word of God =
every word in the original Hebrew and Greek was a word given by the Holy Spirit.
2. There can be
only one true and uncorrupted Bible, since there is only one God, and only one Word of God.
3. When there is a multiplicity of Bibles and they present
huge variations from the tried and true English translation of 400+ years, that should automatically be a red flag.
4. By introducing conflicting Bible versions, Satan's goals of
sowing the seeds of doubt and spiritual confusion are accomplished through Bible publishers and the fans of the modern versions.
5. The very fact that there is
division among Christians because of the Bible version issue is proof that Satan has succeeded in sowing discord among the brethren.
6. The Authorized Version (the KJV) became
THE only English Bible in all English-speaking countries for over 300 years, and millions of souls were saved through the preaching of the Gospel from this Bible. If that does not count for anything, then we are of all men most miserable.
7. Even secular scholars of the English language hold the KJV in very high regard, not only because it is
an outstanding piece of English literature, but did in fact mold the English language. That too should count for something.
8. The whole Bible version controversy began
because of a hoax perpetrated by Westcott & Hort, the two men primarily responsible for a completely different Greek text of the New Testament, and the English Revised Version of 1881 based upon that text. The hoax was essentially that the thousands of Greek manuscripts back of the traditional or Byzantine text of the NT were worthless in comparison to
two corrupt Greek manuscripts -- Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus -- simply because they were deemed to be the oldest uncials (capital letter manuscripts) in existence. What was ignored and suppressed was the fact that these two manuscripts (along with a handful of others) were Gnostic corruptions which had bee rejected by Christians and set aside (hence their survival).
9. All modern Bible versions are based on "critical texts" for both the Hebrew and Greek, which means that
the texts were tampered with by textual scholars who really did not believe in the sacredness of every word of Scripture.
10. There are several clear warnings in the Bible that
men are not to add to or subtract from word of God. Yet that is exactly what you will find in modern Bible versions, where there literally thousands of additions, subtractions, and transpositions, many of which affect doctrine.
11. There is no question that an updated King James Bible would be very helpful, and in fact there are several. Yet no one bothers to talk about them.
12. At least some Christians are fully convinced, based up THE FACTS of the matter, that
the KJV is still the most faithful, most reliable, and most outstanding of all the English translations in existence.