The cry from the lips of the anti-VPP campaigners is “Let us just preach the gospel and save souls!” VPP is not a doctrine that is important. Let us for the sake of peace in the church not defend it or talk about it! Let us be neutral in this very divisive doctrine!
“Let us save souls only, for everything else is secondary including defending the Bible” is the cry and slogan of neo-evangelicals since the mid 20th Century. In 1948 neo-evangelicalism was born. Their clarion call was evangelism at any cost! They claimed that the most important thing in the believer’s life is to save souls! This bred decades of compromise, especially joining hands with the Charismatics and the Roman Catholics in evangelism. Today we see the fruits of this compromise all around us. This seed of compromise has spawn generations of professing Christians which will one day culminate in the end time one world church of the Antichrist!
When a “fundamentalist”, in a fundamentalist church, reasons that all the church needs to focus on today is evangelism and not on earnestly contending for the faith, he has become a neo-evangelical without even realizing it! His body is in a fundamentalist church but his heart and mind are neo-evangelical! This is the deception of neo-evangelicalism. A person becomes a neo-evangelical without realizing that he is one. He feels good about himself because “he is saving souls”. This man-centered delusion is not of God. The Bible is always God-centered, never man-centered. Preaching the gospel is important just as every doctrine in the Bible is of equal importance. The chief end of man is not to preach the gospel but to glorify God. This means that the means and the ends must glorify God. Who I preach with and associate with in the preaching of the gospel is just as important as preaching the gospel itself.
Without the doctrine of VPP there is no gospel to preach. A rejection of the doctrine of VPP implies that all Bibles (Hebrew and Greek) have mistakes! This in turn means that all translations have mistakes! How do you preach the gospel when the gospel is founded upon a Bible with mistakes? How do you build up the faith of the believers in the church when you have to teach in the Basic Bible Knowledge or Catechism class that the Bible has mistakes? Would you allow your children to be taught by Sunday School teachers who believe that the Bible has mistakes? Their faith would be shaken to its core!
“But it is the truth that the Bible has mistakes!” is the cry of the opponents of the doctrine of VPP. They cunningly declare that “the Bible has no mistake that is of any consequence!” This kind of double talk can come only from the mouth of the serpent! They further argue that the mistakes are inconsequential and ranges from 1 to 5% and no doctrine is affected by these mistakes. With the rejection of the doctrine of VPP, all the doctrines of the Bible have come under attack in one fell stroke. Satan is more cunning that we give him credit for. Instead of attacking one doctrine at a time, he attacks all the doctrines together. These attackers of the doctrine of VPP have never seen the original inspired Bible and yet they dare to say that the errors are minimal! How do they know? When they are asked they have no reply. They have no basis for their claim at all other than a sarcedotalistic claim that they just know!
Another argument from the opponents against the truth of the doctrine of VPP is that it divides! We must understand from the teachings of the Bible that all the truths in the Bible are meant to divide! The truths in the Bible will separate the true from the false, the obedient from the disobedient, the faithful from the unfaithful! Jesus says in Luke 12:51-53 , “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.”
The gospel is a gospel of love but it is also a gospel that divides! Darkness hates the Light of God! When the Light of God’s Truth penetrates, darkness will persist unless the heart is obedient and receives the light of God’s truth! When that happens, joy unspeakable is the result. The Christian will enjoy peace in his heart and the wonderful assurance that God is very wise and He cares for His people throughout the ages.
This is what the doctrine of VPP brings into the heart of the believer. He reads the Word of God and knows that he can trust it. It is perfect and has no mistakes. His faith is assured because it is founded in the inerrant and infallible Word of God that he holds in his hands! God who has inspired it has also preserved all the inspired words. The KJV is the best translation in the English language for the English speaking Christians as the KJV is the Bible translated from the perfectly preserved Bible. The translation closest to the perfectly preserved Bible for the Chinese speaking Christian is the CUV at this point in time until a better one comes along. This is the truth about translation. There must be a standard yardstick for comparison or evaluation of all new translations in any language. Without the perfectly preserved Bible there is no basis for evaluation! This is the doctrine of VPP! It is a doctrine which is just as important as the preaching of the gospel for it is a doctrine that honours God and brings glory to His holy and perfect Name! AMEN.