By Jack H. West, 1954.
Act II
Remember Ezekiel tells us that two records are to work as one in the hands of the people and in the hand of God. (Ezekiel 37:15-19.) Surely then in the second great record there should be some information or statement similar to this, and there is. This is a prophet on this continent speaking. He looked down the stream of time – he saw his own seed and the seed of his brother (the Lamanite people).
And it came to pass that I beheld the remnant of the seed of my brethren, and also the book of the Lamb of God, which had proceeded forth from the Gentiles unto the remnant of the seed of my brethren. (I Nephi, 13:38.)
What book has come from the mouth of the Jew of the tribe of Judah, coming to the gentile or the non-Jew, and then from them to the seed of this prophet’s brethren who would be the Lamanites of the American Indians as we think of them today? What book and what book only has come through those steps? The Bible. Then this Book of Mormon prophet is talking about the Bible, this “book of the Lamb of God.”
And they [all men] must come [to Him] according to the words which shall be established by the mouth of the Lamb; and the words of the Lamb [the angel tells this prophet] shall be made known in the records of thy seed, as well as in the records of the twelve apostles of the Lamb; wherefore they both shall be established in one; for there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth. (I Nephi 13:41.)
Do you see the same line of thinking? Two great records were to become as one in the hands of the people and God. It goes on to say, “for there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth.” In other words, he is not just the God of the old continent, but the God of the new continent as well.
…Of a truth I perceive that God is no respector of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. (Acts 10:34-35.)
In line with this thought that the second record did make mention of the oneness of the two great records working as a team, let us read Mormon, chapter 7, verses 8 and 9. The prosecution claimed that this book was written under the influence of Satan. Everyone who has ever read the Book of Mormon and has attempted to show this, has been in serious trouble. You can not say that it is from Satan because everywhere you turn it is evident the book comes from Jesus Christ.
Therefore repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus, and lay hold upon the gospel of Christ, which shall be set before you, not only in this record [the Book of Mormon] but also in the record which shall come unto the Gentiles from the Jews [the Bible] which record shall come from the Gentiles unto you.
Mormon is speaking to his own people yet unborn. The Gospel is given not only in this record, the Book of Mormon, but also in the Bible. Now notice the oneness of the two great records.
For behold, this [ the Book of Mormon] is written for the intent that ye may believe that [the Bible]; and if ye believe that ye will believe this also; and if he believe this ye will know concerning your fathers, and also that marvelous works which were wrought by the power of God among them. (Mormon 7:8-9.)
Isn’t that beautiful – two books working as a team.
THE FIRST CHARGE IN THIS SECOND SESSION: THE BIBLE IS THE WHOLE WORD OF GOD AND THEREFORE THE HEAVENS ARE CLOSED.
“Where in the world do you get that idea?” I asked.
“Well,” they said, “Turn to the very last chapter in the Bible, Revelation 22:18-19 – the very last book and almost the very last verse:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, [not this wording] God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book in this prophecy, God shall take away his part of the book of life, … (Revelation 22:18-19.)
And so they said to me, “That does it. You can neither add to nor take away from the book of the word of God. The Bible, then, is the whole word of God!”
Sounds logical, doesn’t it? But when we got looking at the facts, we found a number of discrepancies. First of all, when John wrote these words, was he writing in the Bible? No. There was not even a Bible in existence. What does “bible” mean? It comes from the world “biblio” which means, literally, a library of small books. How many books in the King James Version? Sixty-six books, thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament. All together, they make up sixty-six books. Now John was writing in just one of these sixty-six books, the book of Revelation, not in the “Book of the Bible.” So how could he have possibly meant by those words to seal and close a record which would be the combination of many small books many years later? Further, many of the greatest students of the Bible tell us that the Book of Revelation should never have been placed last in the chronology in the New Testament, but that other writing of John himself, for instance, were later than the Book of Revelation. Then I said, “If you are determined to use that line interpretation on those two verses, let’s go back to the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 4:2. Now we are way back in the beginning of the Old Testament, not even at the start of the New Testament, mind you, and almost the identical thought is given.”
Ye shall not add unto the words which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2.)
I said to them, “It is almost the same wording, isn’t it?” They were amazed. It is almost the same wording. “You can neither add to nor take from, according to this,” I continued. “Since that is the case, let’s rip out the rest of the Bible.” There was a gasp that went through the mock court.
What if we didn’t have the rest of the Old Testament after Deuteronomy? What if we didn’t have the New Testament and its beautiful testimony of Christ’s personal ministry? How much less we would know of the word of God.
We know then that John’s words could not have been interpreted as the prosecution had interpreted them. How should we then interpret them? The same identical way that we have been asked to interpret in this day and age with modern-day revelation, for the commandment is still with us in modern times. When God has spoken to this prophets and caused them to write his words, it is not within the province of man to either take from those words or to add to those words; in other words, do not change the commandments of God with the words of men.
If we carefully compared over a thousand ancient copies of the New Testament in Greek, we would not find one solitary copy completely agreeing with any other one single copy. At that time there was no printed page like ours today. Copies were made the hard way, in longhand.
What John the Revelator did mean was that when we copy, when we try to tell others of these things, we should try to stay with the original words and not put our own ideas in. How did these thousand copies of the New Testament become so different from one another? Sometimes the copier would be even as you and I. A woman from another church looked at my Bible once and said, “Mr. West, that is sacrilege.” I had marginal notes, I had underlined, I had circling. I had personalized that Bible so that when I opened it to a certain page, something quickly told me that I had gone through it before. You do the same thing, I presume – personalize the books you study. We found the same things in these Greek copies of the New Testament. But remember, those people did not have the printed page for the basis; they had to copy the scriptures the hard way. We find marginal notes by some of the copiers. When someone else copied from a copy that had been copied from a copy, they wouldn’t know whether a marginal note was something left out of the text and placed there in order that it would not be lost, or whether it was the private thinking or thought of the translator or copier. So sometimes we find marginal notes creeping into the text, when they should not have been there. We find other thoughts that were completely omitted, maybe simply an error or omission, with no intent to omit it.
In any event, that is what John meant: When God had given a prophecy to a prophet, it was not within man’s province to either add or detract from it as a prophecy. Man should not add. It did not say that God will not add, did it? To the book of which prophecy? Of “this” prophecy – not this prophecy of the Bible, but this prophecy of the Book of Revelation.
http://youtu.be/nSN7kMG1Fvc?t=1m52s
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