If We Use NKJV - i.e..New King James Version Bible, Will God Remove Our Names From The Book Of Life?
Question : I have something I would like to send you, it shows the number of words deleted, removed and changed lines from the Word of God in New King James Version which by acronym we call as NKJV, it is approximately around 3500 words and in the same way in NIV which means New International Version of the Bible it is over 5000 words and the same happens in all the other newer versions much more than this, which is consistently happening more and more in our times. And as you know in Rev 22:19 God says those who change the word of this Book of prophecy from the Bible, I will remove their name from the Book of life. The promises there in are removed for such people. Thank you. What do you think about the above fact and interpretation of the Scripture that I pointed regarding it? Love & prayers always.
Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! For the warning that God will remove the names of those who add or remove the Word of God is exclusive to the Book of Revelation which is the last book of the Bible that has made the Canonized revelation of God to get closed through John the apostle who wrote it. It cannot be used to say that to other part of it that are translated to get a better understanding of Scripture. If you take this literally, what about the languages in which the Bible are translated and those who come to believe God and read through it? All those translations are also not perfect and the translators have used their own local genetic words to describe the original as close as possible. Will God remove the names of the believers and translators of the Bible just because they are not able to find the exact word for word from Greek and Hebrew Scripture? No, not at all. So the meaning of this following verse, "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Rev 22:19, KJV), does mean that we should add no more revelation or subtract from what has been finalized in the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ which has been revealed to John the apostle at the end of the close of the first century in the island of Patmos, to no more be revealed until all things in it get fulfilled of what has been show to the world and the Church through John the apostle (Rev 1:1-3). The same things has been told in the law of Moses and has been fulfilled by Jesus after which it has become obsolete and are ready to be discarded for the Millennium Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which He will establish the New Covenant to the nation of Israel and give a principle book through the priest and judges to keep themselves clean and holy externally through it (Deut 4:2; Heb 8:13; Zech 12:10; Isa 2:3; 59:21; Mic 4:2; Jer 31:33 ). So to translate literally this verse is to take a out of context meaning that which the above Rev 22:19 verse did not intend. To understand the full context of the Rev 22:18-19, please refer to the following post I have written earlier : http://www.apostolicrevelation.info/2014/04/can-your-name-be-removed-from-book-of.html.
All the different translations of the Bible are given to us by God to be inspired with great understanding and different perspective of the translators understanding of the Word of God. But in case we have any doubt about its original context, we can always take the root word from dictionaries and lexicons to understand the context in a deeper way.
In that way as you say if we take, even KJV which means King James Version has some obscure and indefinite words which are translated not exact to the original Greek and Hebrew, this also is not perfect because even those were translated by human scholars of the early 17th Century. In that case all the Christians have to learn Greek for reading New Testament, and Hebrew for reading Old Testament books to literally not add or subtract any word from its original intended meaning.
Even the Gospel books that we have with us named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written by four different writers with four different perspectives to give us all a wide area of understanding about what God wants to convey to us who see the life of Jesus the Christ our Lord and Savior through it. Each writer have used the same parables sometimes to reveal different spiritual meaning according to their perspectives. So the bottom line that God expected from them is not to use the same words, but the right context that He wanted to convey to the people regarding the truth that He wanted to reveal.
Our God is a God of perspective and He understands the motive of our heart and therefore He never will ask why we as Christians have not kept the letter of the Word but rather will always ask when we miss to keep the letter of the Spirit which is the understanding of the Scripture we have in our original understanding as revealed by the Spirit of God to us personally. Even the great Pharisees who kept the letter of the Word and have not kept the letter of the Spirit were the most rebuked and reproofed persons by Jesus for their hypocrisy in this regard (Mark 7:13; Matt 23:23). God is more concerned about our inner life of purity and obedience to His voice within us through our relationship with Him rather than just the external way of obedience to the word and understanding of it grammatically right (Matt 23:24-28; 1 Sam 15:22-23; John 5:39; 17:3). Being a teacher of the Word of God I do not in any way say that we can be careless about understanding the Word of God in its right context and therefore fail to receive the mighty blessing of God that comes through it, rather I emphasize that our understanding of Scripture should lead us to understand the personality of our Lord God in a better way, and as a result of it be close to Him in our heart relationship with Him which God intensely desires towards us.
In case we need to know whether a translation stays true to its context, you can use parallel Bible with different evangelical version such as KJV-King James Version, NKJV-New King James Version, NIV-New International Version, NLT-New Living Translation along with a concordance added in its middle section all together in its entirety to see the veracity of the words used and its context to know its accuracy and authenticity.
Thanks and Blessings.....
Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! For the warning that God will remove the names of those who add or remove the Word of God is exclusive to the Book of Revelation which is the last book of the Bible that has made the Canonized revelation of God to get closed through John the apostle who wrote it. It cannot be used to say that to other part of it that are translated to get a better understanding of Scripture. If you take this literally, what about the languages in which the Bible are translated and those who come to believe God and read through it? All those translations are also not perfect and the translators have used their own local genetic words to describe the original as close as possible. Will God remove the names of the believers and translators of the Bible just because they are not able to find the exact word for word from Greek and Hebrew Scripture? No, not at all. So the meaning of this following verse, "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Rev 22:19, KJV), does mean that we should add no more revelation or subtract from what has been finalized in the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ which has been revealed to John the apostle at the end of the close of the first century in the island of Patmos, to no more be revealed until all things in it get fulfilled of what has been show to the world and the Church through John the apostle (Rev 1:1-3). The same things has been told in the law of Moses and has been fulfilled by Jesus after which it has become obsolete and are ready to be discarded for the Millennium Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which He will establish the New Covenant to the nation of Israel and give a principle book through the priest and judges to keep themselves clean and holy externally through it (Deut 4:2; Heb 8:13; Zech 12:10; Isa 2:3; 59:21; Mic 4:2; Jer 31:33 ). So to translate literally this verse is to take a out of context meaning that which the above Rev 22:19 verse did not intend. To understand the full context of the Rev 22:18-19, please refer to the following post I have written earlier : http://www.apostolicrevelation.info/2014/04/can-your-name-be-removed-from-book-of.html.
All the different translations of the Bible are given to us by God to be inspired with great understanding and different perspective of the translators understanding of the Word of God. But in case we have any doubt about its original context, we can always take the root word from dictionaries and lexicons to understand the context in a deeper way.
In that way as you say if we take, even KJV which means King James Version has some obscure and indefinite words which are translated not exact to the original Greek and Hebrew, this also is not perfect because even those were translated by human scholars of the early 17th Century. In that case all the Christians have to learn Greek for reading New Testament, and Hebrew for reading Old Testament books to literally not add or subtract any word from its original intended meaning.
Even the Gospel books that we have with us named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written by four different writers with four different perspectives to give us all a wide area of understanding about what God wants to convey to us who see the life of Jesus the Christ our Lord and Savior through it. Each writer have used the same parables sometimes to reveal different spiritual meaning according to their perspectives. So the bottom line that God expected from them is not to use the same words, but the right context that He wanted to convey to the people regarding the truth that He wanted to reveal.
Our God is a God of perspective and He understands the motive of our heart and therefore He never will ask why we as Christians have not kept the letter of the Word but rather will always ask when we miss to keep the letter of the Spirit which is the understanding of the Scripture we have in our original understanding as revealed by the Spirit of God to us personally. Even the great Pharisees who kept the letter of the Word and have not kept the letter of the Spirit were the most rebuked and reproofed persons by Jesus for their hypocrisy in this regard (Mark 7:13; Matt 23:23). God is more concerned about our inner life of purity and obedience to His voice within us through our relationship with Him rather than just the external way of obedience to the word and understanding of it grammatically right (Matt 23:24-28; 1 Sam 15:22-23; John 5:39; 17:3). Being a teacher of the Word of God I do not in any way say that we can be careless about understanding the Word of God in its right context and therefore fail to receive the mighty blessing of God that comes through it, rather I emphasize that our understanding of Scripture should lead us to understand the personality of our Lord God in a better way, and as a result of it be close to Him in our heart relationship with Him which God intensely desires towards us.
In case we need to know whether a translation stays true to its context, you can use parallel Bible with different evangelical version such as KJV-King James Version, NKJV-New King James Version, NIV-New International Version, NLT-New Living Translation along with a concordance added in its middle section all together in its entirety to see the veracity of the words used and its context to know its accuracy and authenticity.
Thanks and Blessings.....
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