THE CHURCH'S HISTORICAL TEXT
Of course, by faith we know that we do not have to wait for such a meticulous lengthy undertaking as described in the previous chapter (see pp. 1 ff.) to be completed in order for us to finally possess the original text. By faith, the child of God knows that he already has the Word of God at his disposal. A study of the history of the transmission of the Scriptures from their having been deposited by the Lord into the hands of man will further serve to strengthen that faith; yet such a study will not completely prove beyond all doubt that this is so.
This cannot be over emphasized, for unless we come by faith to a commitment that God has kept His promises and providentially preserved His Word in the Textus Receptus itself and not merely in the Greek majority readings, the final form of the text will forever be unsettled in our hearts.1 The natural, rational mind resents this method. However the pitfalls apart from such a theological approach are many and dangerous. The late Dr. Edward F. Hills is consistently Christian and perceptive in his logic when he addressed this matter regarding its relation to higher education.
"Questions like these cause many conservative seminary students to panic and become virtual unbelievers in their biblical studies. In order, therefore, to prevent such catastrophes, we must always emphasize the Christian starting point that all our thinking ought to have. If we are Christians, then we must begin our thinking not with the assertions of unbelieving scholars and their naturalistic human logic, but with Christ and the logic of faith.
"... In biblical studies, in philosophy, in science, and in every other learned field we must begin with Christ and then work out our basic principles according to the logic of faith. This procedure will show us how to utilize the learning of non-Christian scholars in such a way as to profit by their instruction. Undeniably these unbelievers know a great many facts by virtue of God's common grace. They misinterpret these facts, however, because they ignore and deny God's revelation of Himself in and through the facts. Hence our task is to point out the inconsistencies and absurdities of unbelieving thought and then to take the facts which learned unbelievers have assembled and place them in their proper framework of biblical truth.
