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Trinitarian Bible Society
December 7, 2004
Attn: Pastor W. Roy Mohon
Tyndale House
Dorset Road
London, SW19 3NN
England
Dear Pastor Mohon,
Greetings to you from the USA. I recently had the opportunity to
read the latest Quarterly Record and found the message
“Unshakeable Confidence” which you gave following the 173rd
Annual General Meeting on the 19th of June this year. I read the
article intently, carefully and seriously. As I read, I was
encouraged greatly and only wished I had as much eloquence in
communication as you and the other ministers at TBS. I read,
previous to your article, where TBS desires to have some young
men assist in the preaching load, and my heart was burdened to
be one of those young men, as I am 33 years of age and have
received a BA and an MA degree from a prominent and
distinguished American university.
“Unshakeable Confidence” is a sound description of faith in the
Word of God, and I would like to avow and acknowledge such
assurance I have. Sola Scriptura is the foundation of every
other sola. I agree when you adamantly maintain, “that Scripture
must settle every controversy.” I have the same repulsion for
“the dragon of relativism” which must be slain -- whose mouth
must be stopped -- because the abandonment of absolute standards
results in death. The serpent’s subtle “Yea hath God said?” must
be affirmed with the heel.
I was glad when you confessed the “process is a mystery…. But
the product is not a mystery.” You defended the written Word as
not requiring abstract recollection but authoritative reading of
“the open Bible before us. We can have it read to us. It is here
in permanent form.” You continued, “We have an unshakeable
confidence in the Scripture because its author is God, its
authority is absolute and the access to it is permanent. God has
preserved His Word and He will preserve His Word.”
Now the purpose of this letter is to find out from you whether
the Scripture passages you quoted in your article are the very
same Scripture about which you are boasting, or if you are not
using the very same dragon of relativism (you wrote against) to
imply that the Bible about which you brag is not in fact the one
you are using as a source in your article?
I noted that you consistently quoted from the Authorized Version
in your excellent defense of Scripture, then you brazenly
distanced yourself from it and deliberately removed yourself
from too close an association with it. After your wonderful
defense of the (mystical?) Bible, you shockingly gave the
disclaimer, “We are not making claims for the Authorized Version
that it is perfect, because every translation of the Word of God
must choose words of men to translate the original languages. We
are not claiming the translation’s perfection, but why are we
standing for the Authorized Version? It is for this reason:
‘Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy.’”
Brother, if it’s not perfect, then it’s not accurate. “All
scripture is given by inspiration of God…that the man of God may
be PERFECT.” If the Authorized Version is not perfect, then it
certainly cannot make any man of God perfect; so it cannot be
Scripture.
.
Have you not eroded your credibility, shaken your confidence and
destroyed the very purpose of your article? Have you not become
guilty of the very sin you seek to expose? This is relativism,
pure and simple. If you are going to distinguish the Authorized
Version as a mere (inferior) version, compared with the forever
settled Word of God, then why did you quote from the Authorized
Version throughout your article as if IT was the Bible you were
bragging about, when you now are revealing that a version must
be looked upon as separate, distinct and inferior to the
(mysterious?) preserved Word of God? You have separated the
Authorized Version as distinct from the Bible of which you
boast; Have you not? You have said the Bible is
all-authoritative, but the Authorized Version is not.
Did you use as a source for your article on the Perfect,
Preserved Word of God an imperfect translation? Why didn’t you
quote from the one of which you boasted which has no mistakes
but has “absolute reliability”? You have shot yourself in the
foot, and now all the arguments you have given --about people’s
false “interpretations” and the work of Satan undermining the
authority of the Bible, and the “destructive effect” of
unscriptural and contrary teachings – now all apply to yourself.
To ask you the same question you began with, “Who is your
Jesus?” All it takes is one sin to disqualify the living Word.
If He was not Perfect, then He is not sufficient.
Which Bible are you boasting of? Which one can I hold in my
hands as “reliable”? Which one is not broken? Are you not guilty
of using the same dragon of relativism? And, is it not producing
the same affect in your hearers?
For example: You made a very good point to show how every word
of God is significant, and how the Bible is authoritative and
unbreakable “down to a single word.” However, if I am to take
your word for it -- that my Authorized Version is not perfect –
is not the entire book held in question? If it’s not perfect,
does that not destroy the credibility of EVERY word? How do I
know where the imperfections are, or how serious they are? Must
I take your word for it, and have faith in you above faith in
the Scripture, which the Authorized Version is? Have you not
strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel? Forget grasping at ONE
word’s significance if my entire Bible must be held in question
as to perfection.
Let me ask you Pastor, what are you standing for? Can you give
an answer --as you professed in your article -- Does the
Scripture really settle every controversy for you? I ask you
this because your reason for disqualifying my Bible did not come
from the Bible, Greek or Hebrew. You said, “because every
translation …must choose words of men to translate the original
languages.” Do you see what you have just done? By that one
statement, you have created a doctrine, a rule, a law, a precept
whereby to determine Scripture, and your rule is extra-Biblical.
The Bible never makes the same appeal, but modern “scholars” do.
You just jumped outside of the Law to determine the Law. You
just jumped outside of the Gospel to determine the good news,
and it’s not good news at all if what we have in front of us,
and what you have been quoting from is not perfect.
Would you really build a house with instruments that were
imperfect? An imperfect square with 89 degrees, or a level that
was off just a little? God has given us perfect laws – 360
degrees in a circle – but our Bible is imperfect?
Your new rule is first hinted at previously in the article where
you state, “We understand from this that the Scriptures in the
original languages have been transmitted in such a degree of
purity as to make appeal to a single word possible. These
documents in the original languages in our hands have verbal
authenticity…” Objection! You have just stated your creed, your
law, your canon, your measuring rod, your doctrine apart from
Scripture! Where does the Bible make such a vast and sweeping
claim? Nowhere in the Bible are original languages given any
preeminence at all above other (later) languages. You have
created a new rule whereby you are redefining the entire Bible!
If what you stated were true, then we would read that rule in
the New Testament applied to the Old Testament Scriptures –
namely, that the NT Greeks needed to get back to the Hebrew OT
originals – but we never find your new doctrine taught within
the space of 4000 years and several different languages! Your
rule is extra-Biblical and therefore heretical and is helping
produce doubts in the hearts of millions today as to the
reliability of the entire Bible. You are part of the problem you
are seeking to expose. Can you not see this?
You stated so well yourself, that the Scripture which could not
be broken, to which Jesus referred, and in which His disciples
could trust was not “the manuscript in David’s handwriting” but
what was accessible to them in that day. Obviously the disciples
spoke a different language from David, so they were trusting in
a TRANSLATION. There is a great amount of translation in the
Bible itself from beginning to end, but never your assumed rule
of inferiority.
Your heresy is clearly shown by the fact there is not one place
in the New Testament or the whole Bible where Jesus or any other
person writing by inspiration maintained that versions were
inferior to originals – that is a modern lie of the devil, and
you are espousing it, contrary to the revealed, written Word of
God. You have created a doctrine of worship of original
languages, but the Bible itself nowhere teaches this doctrine.
Won’t you be true to your good profession and let the Scripture
settle this controversy rather than making two extra-Biblical
statements and using them to determine and in effect to
undermine all of Scripture?
Towards the close of your article, you mentioned about the
royalty of the soldiers of the Queen at the gates of Buckingham
Palace: “Their dress was immaculate…as they played in honour of
the Queen.” You said that a tear rolled down your cheek as you
beheld the wonder and considered the spiritual symbolism. Would
to God more tears would come down your cheeks as you consider
how you have stripped the Son of God of His glory by vain and
profane philosophies of sinful men who will not have a perfect
Word of God to reign over them.
I pray that my attitude has been respectful and faithful, and
that if I have regarded you as you have regarded my precious
Bible, you will consider me good enough to quote all throughout
your next eloquent discourse.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
(signed)
Timothy Dwight Fellows Jr.
My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that
we shall receive the greater condemnation. (James 3:1)
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