1.7 
 
 .) 
 
 BS 188 .M5A 1917 
 
 
 
 Milligan 
 
 , George, 
 
 1860- 
 
 193A. 
 
 The expository va 
 
 lue of 
 
 the 
 
 Revised 
 
 version 
 
 
 
THE SHORT COURSE SERIES 
 
 THE EXPOSITORY VALUE OF THE 
 REVISED VERSION 
 
GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 The title of the present series is a sufficient 
 indication of its purpose. Few preachers, 
 or congregations, will face the long courses 
 of expository lectures which characterised 
 the preaching of the past, but there is a 
 growing conviction on the part of some 
 that an occasional short course, of six or 
 eight connected studies on one definite 
 theme, is a necessity of their mental and 
 ministerial life. It is at this point the pro- 
 jected series would strike in. It would 
 suggest to those who are mapping out a 
 scheme of work for the future a variety of 
 subjects which might possibly be utilised in 
 this way. 
 
 The appeal, however, will not be restricted 
 to ministers or preachers. The various 
 volumes will meet the needs of laymen and 
 ii 
 
General Preface 
 
 Sabbath-school teachers who are interested 
 in a scholarly but also practical exposition 
 of Bible history and doctrine. In the hands 
 of office-bearers and mission-workers the 
 " Short Course Series " may easily become 
 one of the most convenient and valuable 
 of Bible helps. 
 
 It need scarcely be added that while an 
 effort has been made to secure, as far as 
 possible, a general uniformity in the scope 
 and character of the series, the final re- 
 sponsibility for the special interpretations 
 and opinions introduced into the separate 
 volumes, rests entirely with the individual 
 contributors. 
 
 A detailed list of the authors and their 
 subjects will be found at the close of each 
 volume. 
 
Volumes Already Published 
 
 A Cry for Justice: A Study in Amos. 
 
 By Prof. John E. McFadyen, D.D. 
 The Beatitudes. 
 
 By Rev. Robert H. Fisher, D.D. 
 The Lenten Psalms. 
 
 By the Editor. 
 The Psalm of Psalms. 
 
 By Prof. James Stalker, D.D. 
 The Song and the Soil. 
 
 By Prof. W. G. Jordan, D.D. 
 The Higher Powers of the Soul. 
 
 By Rev. George M'Hardy, D.D. 
 Jehovah-Jesus. 
 
 By Rev. Thomas Whitelaw, D.D. 
 The Sevenfold i Am. 
 
 By Rev. Thomas Marjoribanks, B.D. 
 The Man Among the Myrtles. 
 
 By the Editor. 
 The Story of Joseph. 
 
 By Rev. Adam C. Welch, B.D., Th.D. 
 The Divine Drama of Job. 
 
 By Rev. Charles F. Aked, D.D. 
 A Mirror of the Soul: Studies in the Psalter. 
 
 By Rev. Canon Vaughan, M.A. 
 In the Upper Room. 
 
 By Rev. D. J. Burrill, D.D., LL.D. 
 The Son of Man. 
 
 By Andrew C. Zenos, D.D., LL.D. 
 The Joy of Finding. 
 
 By Rev. Alfred E. Garvie. 
 The Prayers of St. Paul. 
 
 By Rev. W. H. Griffith Thomas, D.D. 
 The Emotions of Jesus. 
 
 By Prof. Robert Law, D.D. 
 Belief and Life. 
 
 By W. B. Selbie, M.A., D.D. 
 The Prophecy of Micah. 
 
 By Rev. Arthur J. Tait, D.D. 
 The Expository Value of the Revised Version. 
 
 By George Milligan, D.D. 
 
 Price 75 cents net per Volume 
 
Zlbe Sbort Courge Series 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Rbv. JOHN ADAMS, B.D. 
 
 THE 
 EXPOSITORY VALUE OF 
 THE REVISED VERSION 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE "mILLIGAN, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1917 
 
TO 
 
 JAMES HOPE MOULTON 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sketch of the History of the English 
 Versions from the Earliest Days down 
 to the Revised Version . . . . i 
 
 I. The Earlier Versions .... 3 
 II. The Later Versions . . • . 20 
 
 PART II 
 
 The Practical Use of the Revised Version 43 
 I. Negatively — Its Removing of Diffi- 
 culties 45 
 
 II. Positively — Its Advantages as com- 
 pared with the Authorized Version 70 
 
 PART III 
 
 The Doctrinal Significance of the Revised 
 Version 93 
 
 I. The Person and Work of Christ . 95 
 
 II. The Christian Life .... 107 
 
 III. The Holy Spirit and Free Will . .124 
 
 IV. The Last Things 135 
 
 Appendix 141 
 
 Index , ... 145 
 
 vii 
 
"Translation it is that 
 
 openeth the window, to let 
 
 in the light 
 
 ; that breaketh the shell, that we 
 
 may 
 
 eat 
 
 the kernel 
 
 that putteth 
 
 aside the curtain, 
 
 that 
 
 we 
 
 may look 
 
 into the most 
 
 holy place ; that 
 
 removeth 
 
 the cover 
 
 of the well, 
 
 that we may come 
 
 by 
 
 the 
 
 water." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Translators to the Reader^ 
 
 i6i 
 
 [. 
 
PART I 
 
 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE ENG- 
 LISH VERSIONS FROM THE EARLIEST 
 DAYS DOWN TO THE REVISED VERSION 
 
I 
 
 THE EARLIER VERSIONS 
 
 In order to understand the place which the 
 Revised Version has in the history of our 
 EngHsh Bible, it will be well to review that 
 history briefly from the time of the original 
 documents down to the present day. 
 
 I. The Original Documents and Jerome. 
 
 In the case of the Old Testament, these 
 original documents consisted of a number 
 of rolls, or books in roll-form, the time of 
 whose composition extended over a period 
 of several centuries. The rolls were written 
 (with a few trifling exceptions) in the 
 Hebrew language, and mainly, if not entirely, 
 on skins. And it is characteristic of the 
 
 3 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 conservatism that generally prevails in re- 
 ligious matters, that to this day the Jews 
 still prefer the use of leather and the roll- 
 form for Synagogue use. And though, as 
 a matter of fact, the oldest dated Hebrew 
 MS. we possess belongs to the close of the 
 tenth century after Christ, there are many 
 proofs known to scholars which show that 
 the original text has on the whole been 
 faithfully preserved. 
 
 Nor must we forget that it is not only 
 in the original Hebrew that the books of the 
 Old Covenant have been handed down to 
 us. About two hundred years before Christ, 
 the whole Old Testament was translated 
 into Greek. And while this translation 
 was intended primarily for the Jews of the 
 Dispersion, it came to be largely used in 
 Palestine itself by those to whom the original 
 Hebrew was gradually becoming more and 
 more unfamiliar, owing to Aramaic having 
 taken its place in general use. The Septua- 
 GiNT indeed, as this Greek translation was 
 called, may be said to have formed the 
 Bible of our Lord and His Apostles, if we 
 
 4 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 may judge from the fact that the majority 
 of quotations from the Old Testament in 
 the New Testament approximate more 
 closely to the Greek than to the Hebrew 
 version. 
 
 As regards the New Testament, its books, 
 in the form in which we have them now, 
 were all written in the ordinary vernacular 
 Greek of the day, and, it can hardly be 
 doubted, on papyrus, then the common 
 writing material. Nor, at first, did any 
 such authority or sanctity attach to them 
 as was the case with the books of the Law 
 and of the Prophets. Gradually, however, 
 they won their way to canonical acceptance, 
 until about the close of the second century 
 the Christian Church virtually possessed 
 what is now our Bible, with its two parts, 
 the Old and the New Testaments, both of 
 which are preserved for us in the great 
 codices of the fourth century — the Codex 
 Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. 
 
 By the aid of these Greek MSS., and many 
 others of varying degrees of value, critics 
 are now engaged in the all-important work 
 
 5 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 of reconstructing, as far as possible, the 
 actual words of the sacred writers. 
 
 In this task a welcome aid is afforded 
 by the different versions or translations 
 into which from a very early date the 
 books of the Bible were rendered. And 
 amongst these there is one which has a 
 very direct bearing on our present in- 
 quiry. 
 
 From the second century onwards parts 
 of the Bible had appeared in a Latin dress ; 
 but, gradually, so many various readings 
 and renderings had sprung up, that, towards 
 the close of the fourth century, the need of 
 an authoritative revision became apparent. 
 This task was accordingly entrusted by 
 Pope Damasus to Eusebius Hieronymus, 
 or Jerome, as he is generally called. And 
 the result of his labours was the Vulgate, 
 or commonly - received Latin Text, which 
 in the Sixtine - Clementine recension of 
 1592 is still the authoritative Scripture of 
 the Roman Cathclic Church. 
 
 It was this Latin Bible, then, that St. 
 Augustine and his fellow - missionaries 
 6 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 brought with them to England in the sixth 
 century, and consequently it formed the 
 basis of those Anglo-Saxon and Anglo- 
 Norman paraphrases which for nearly seven 
 hundred years formed the only vernacular 
 versions of Scripture which the people in 
 this country possessed. 
 
 2. The Early Paraphrasts and Wyclif. 
 
 The story of the early paraphrasts is a 
 very interesting one, embracing as it does 
 the names of the Saxon cowherd C^edmon, 
 who, in the third quarter of the seventh 
 century, in obedience to a Divine vision, 
 sang " the beginning of created things " ; 
 of the venerable Bede, the most famous 
 scholar of his day in Western Europe, whose 
 last work was a translation of the Gospel of 
 St. John ; and of the priest Aldred, who, 
 about the middle of the tenth century, 
 wrote an Anglo-Saxon word-for-word trans- 
 lation between the lines of the Latin Gospels 
 written at Lindisfarne in honour of St. 
 Cuthbert. 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 But important as the work of these and 
 others was, it cannot be said to have done 
 more than famiHarize the minds of the 
 people with the leading facts in Old and 
 New Testament history, until such time 
 as they should have the whole Bible in 
 their own hands. 
 
 The man to whom this was principally 
 due was John Wyclif, " the morning star 
 of the Reformation." Struck by the evils 
 and distresses of his times, WycHf felt that 
 what, above all, the people required was 
 ^ wider acquaintance with the truths of 
 the Gospel. " Christian men," so he 
 wrote, " ought much to travail night and 
 day about text of Holy Writ, and namely 
 [especially] the Gospel in their mother- 
 tongue, since Jesus Christ, very God and 
 very man, taught this Gospel with His 
 own blessed mouth and kept it in His life." 
 Accordingly, with the assistance of his 
 friend Nicholas de Hereford, he set to work 
 so earnestly at the task of translation that by 
 the middle of the year 1382 he had the joy 
 of seeing the whole Scriptures in the hands 
 8 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 of the people in a form they could under- 
 stand. Six years later a revised edition 
 appeared under the editorship of Wyclif's 
 former assistant, John Purvey, introduced 
 by a most interesting Prologue. " Since at 
 the beginning of faith," so Purvey writes, 
 " so many men translated into Latin, and 
 to great profit of Latin men, let one simple 
 creature of God translate into English, for 
 profit of English men. . . . Therefore a 
 translator hath great need to study well 
 the sentence, both before and after, and 
 look that such equivalent words accord 
 with the sentence, and he hath neecj to 
 live a clean life, and be full devout in 
 prayers, and have not his wit occupied 
 about worldly things, that the Holy 
 Spirit, author of wisdom, and knowledge, 
 and truth, direct him in his work, 
 and suffer him not to err. ... By this 
 manner with good living and great tra- 
 vail, men may come to true and clear 
 translating, and true understanding of Holy 
 Writ, seem it never so hard at the begin- 
 ning." 
 
 9 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 We might have expected that the pub- 
 lication of these versions v^ould have pleased 
 the Church, but instead it aroused the 
 bitter hostility of the priests and others 
 in authority, and for their reward the 
 translators had to look to the eagerness 
 w^ith which their work was welcomed hy 
 all classes of the people. 
 
 The new versions were indeed admirably 
 suited for popular use by the homeliness 
 and direction of their diction, as may be 
 seen in the following examples from Purvey's 
 revision of St. Matthew : " Twey men 
 metten hym, that hadden deuelis, and 
 camen out of graues, ful woode [mad] " 
 (viii. 28) ; " And loo ! in a greet hire 
 [rush] al the droue wente heedlyng in to the 
 see " (viii. 32) ; "A leche is not nedeful 
 to men that faren wel, but to men that ben 
 yuel at ese " (ix. 12) ; " Lo ! my child, 
 whom Y haue chosun, my derling " (xii. 18) ; 
 " And he cometh, and fyndith it voide, and 
 clensid with besyms [brooms], and maad 
 faire " (xii. 44) ; " And the boot in the 
 myddel of the see was schoggid with wawis " 
 10 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 (xiv. 24). From the earlier version, it will 
 be of interest to cite Wyclif's rendering of 
 the Lord's Prayer : 
 
 " Oure fader that art in heuenes, halowide 
 be thi name ; thi kyngdom come to"; be 
 thi wille done as in heuene and in erthe ; 
 zif to vs this day oure brede ouer other 
 substaunce ; and forzyue to vs oure dettis, 
 as we forzyuen to oure dottours ; and leede 
 vs not in to temptacon, but delyuer vs 
 fro al euyl. Amen " (Matt. vi. 9-13). 
 
 It will be noted that Wyclif rightly omits 
 the doxology at the end in accordance with 
 the Latin text from which he was trans- 
 lating, which in this particular is closer to 
 the original, as our Revised Version shows, 
 than many of the late Greek MSS. which 
 subsequent translators used. On the other 
 hand, both his and Purvey's versions un- 
 doubtedly suffered greatly from being only 
 translations of a translation ; while the 
 fact that they were prepared entirely by 
 hand necessarily made copies very expensive, 
 as much as ^30 or ^40 of our money being 
 sometimes paid for a complete copy. 
 II 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 3. The Invention of Printing and 
 
 TiNDALE. 
 
 The publication in the first half of the 
 fourteenth century of the Biblia Pauperum, 
 a series of rough woodcuts with texts from 
 Scripture attached, did something, no doubt, 
 in the way of spreading a knowledge of Bible 
 History amongst the people. But the in- 
 struction these books conveyed was small, 
 and it is to two other events that we must 
 principally look for the preparation by 
 which the appearance of our next version 
 was heralded. 
 
 One was the Invention of Printing. About 
 the middle of the fifteenth century. Fust, a 
 goldsmith of Mainz, perfecting Gutenberg's 
 experiments, issued from the Press the first 
 printed Latin Bible, generally known as 
 the Mazarin Bible, from a copy found in 
 the library of Cardinal Mazarin. The new 
 discovery soon spread, and of the Latin 
 Bible alone ninety-one editions were issued 
 before the close of the century. 
 12 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 The other was the Revival of Learning. 
 By the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greek 
 scholars were driven westward, and a fresh 
 era began in the study of Greek. The 
 result was the appearance of Erasmus' 
 Greek Testament at Basle in 15 16, which 
 in matter of publication, though not of 
 actual printing, antedated by several years 
 the New Testament in the Complutensian 
 Polyglot edition of Cardinal Ximenes. New 
 editions of the Hebrew Old Testament, 
 along with Hebrew and Greek Grammars, 
 also began to appear, offering invaluable 
 aids for the work of translation. And 
 with the hour came the man. 
 
 It is impossible to sketch even in out- 
 line the romantic story of William Tindale 
 (1490-15 36). It must be enough that 
 from the hour when in controversy with 
 a Roman Catholic opponent he exclaimed, 
 " If God spare my life, ere many years I 
 will cause a boy that drive th the plough 
 shall know more of the Scriptures than thou 
 doest," until the day — 6th October 1536 — 
 when he died a martyr at the stake at 
 
 13 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 Vilvorde near Brussels, his whole energies 
 were directed to his self-imposed task. It 
 was in exile that that task was performed, 
 for, as he pathetically remarks, '' there was 
 no place to do it in all England." Volun- 
 tarily, therefore, he left his native land, 
 never to see it again ; and after passing 
 through various vicissitudes and dangers, at 
 length at Worms, in the year 1525, produced 
 the first complete printed New Testament 
 in EngHsh. Copies, both in the original 
 quarto and in a smaller octavo edition, 
 were at once forwarded to England ; but 
 warning of their coming had already been 
 sent, and thousands of copies were seized 
 and burnt at the old Cross of St. Paul's.^ 
 It was only what Tindale had expected. 
 " In burning the New Testament," he 
 wrote, two years later, " they did none 
 ^ Only three copies now survive : one a fragment of 
 the quarto edition, containing the Prologue and St. Matt. 
 i. i-xxii. 12 in the Grenville Room of the British 
 Museum, and two copies of the octavo edition, one, wanting 
 only the title-page, in the Library of the Baptist College 
 at Bristol, and the other, more defective, in the Library 
 of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 other thing than that I looked for : no 
 more shall they do if they burn me also, 
 if it be God's will that it shall so be." 
 Thanks, however, to the printing-press, 
 the place of the burnt copies was soon 
 supplied, and the new version was scattered 
 broadcast over the land. Thus in 1528 
 one Robert Necton confessed to carrying 
 on a regular work of colportage, selling the 
 New Testaments at 2S. or 2s. 6d. bound, or, 
 according to the present value of the money, 
 j^i, los. or ^i, 17s. 6d. each. And there is 
 further evidence that '^ divers merchants of 
 Scotland bought many of such books, and 
 took them to Scotland, a part to Edinburgh, 
 and most part to the town of St. Andrews." 
 
 Meanwhile the translator was continuing 
 his work abroad, and in 1530 there appeared 
 a translation of the Pentateuch with char- 
 acteristic Prologues to the several books, ^ 
 and four years later a revised edition of the 
 New Testament was published at Antwerp 
 
 1 Thus the opening Prologue begins : '* Though a 
 man had a precious iuell and a rich, yet if he wiste not 
 the value thereof nor wherfore it served, he were nother 
 
 IS 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 with the title, " The Newe Testament 
 dylygently corrected and compared with 
 the Greek by Willyam Tindale." To this 
 edition certain Old Testament lessons were 
 attached and a Preface in which the trans- 
 lator called upon all men to read his trans- 
 lation " for that purpose I wrote it, even to 
 bring them to the knowledge of the Scrip- 
 ture," adding, with characteristic humility, 
 a request to all who found any fault in 
 his work to show it to him that he might 
 amend it. The result was that in the 
 following year there appeared a fresh issue 
 of the 1534 Testament, " yet once agayne 
 corrected by Willyam Tindale," the very 
 minuteness of many of the changes affording 
 striking witness of the translator's desire 
 for the most scrupulous accuracy. It was 
 all in keeping with the inmost spirit of his 
 whole work, as he himself had declared 
 that spirit in writing to his friend Fryth 
 
 the better nor rycher of a straw. Even so though we read 
 the scripture and bable of it never so moch, yet if we 
 know not the use of it, and wherfore it was geven, and 
 what is therin to be sought, it profiteth vs nothinge at all." 
 
 16 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 two years before : " I call God to record 
 against the day we shall appear before our 
 Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our 
 doings, that I never altered one syllable 
 of God's word against my conscience, nor 
 would this day, if all that is in the earth, 
 whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, 
 might be given me." 
 
 But the heroic life was drawing to its 
 close. Tindale had many enemies in Eng- 
 land, and now when the Royal Envoy was 
 instructed to decoy him to return, he would 
 not venture. " If it would stand," so he 
 pleaded in eloquent and pathetic terms, 
 " with the King's most gracious pleasure 
 to grant only a bare text of the Scripture 
 to be put forth among his people ... I 
 shall immediately make faithful promise 
 never to write more, nor abide two days in 
 these parts after the same ; but immediately 
 to repair into his realm, and there most 
 humbly submit myself at the feet of his Royal 
 Majesty, offering my body to suffer what 
 pain or torture, yea, what death his Grace 
 will, so that this be obtained." The self- 
 
 17 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 sacrificing plea was of no avail ; and soon 
 afterwards he was betrayed into the hands 
 of his enemies by an unprincipled English- 
 man named Philipps, and, after suffering 
 an imprisonment of nearly a year and a half, 
 was first strangled and then burned. His 
 last words were, " Lord, open the King of 
 England's eyes." 
 
 Of Tindale's worth as a man, and of his 
 unwearied efforts in the cause of Bible 
 translation and Bible diffusion, the little 
 that we have been able to say is sufficient 
 proof. On his place as a scholar it is im- 
 possible to enter. It must be enough that 
 while his version undoubtedly bore traces 
 of the influence of the Wyclifite versions 
 at home and of Luther's Testament in 
 Germany, he was too good a linguist to 
 be slavishly dependent on any one, and can 
 justly claim the credit of being the first 
 in England at any rate (with the possible 
 exception of Bede) to go straight to the 
 Hebrew and Greek originals. While, as 
 showing in turn the extent of his influence 
 upon the future history of our Bible, it 
 i8 
 
The Earlier Versions 
 
 has been calculated that in the whole of his 
 New Testament there are not more than 
 350 words which do not occur in the Author- 
 ized Version, and many of the latter's most 
 happy phrases and sentences are directly 
 traceable to the old translator. No doubt 
 Tindale's version had its faults, chief among 
 them perhaps his love, for the sake of 
 variety, of rendering the same Greek word 
 in different ways. But take his work all in 
 all, and Fuller's eulogy is not exaggerated : 
 " What he undertook was to be admired 
 as glorious ; what he performed, to be com- 
 mended as profitable ; wherein he failed, 
 is to be excused as pardonable, and to be 
 scored on the account rather of that age, 
 than of the author himself.'' 
 
 19 
 
II 
 
 THE LATER VERSIONS 
 
 I. Coverdale's Bible. 
 
 TiNDALE had not left himself without 
 worthy successors, foremost amongst whom 
 was one Miles Coverdale (1488-1569), who 
 had already assisted Tindale in his transla- 
 tion of the Pentateuch, and who now, urged 
 on by Thomas Cromwell, set himself so dili- 
 gently to work that in 1535, probably at 
 Zurich, the first complete Bible printed in 
 English was issued from the press. 
 
 In his Dedication to Henry viii. Cover- 
 dale modestly disclaims the position of an 
 independent translator, and speaks of having 
 " purely and faythfully " followed " fyue 
 sundry interpreters," who are generally 
 identified with Luther, the Zurich Bible, 
 the Vulgate, the Latin version of Pagninus, 
 20 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 and Tindale. At the same time he was 
 very far from being a mere " proof-reader 
 or corrector " of the labour of his pre- 
 decessors. His work possesses undoubted 
 original value ; and if Tindale in his trans- 
 lation " gave us the first great outhne 
 distinctly and wonderfully etched," Cover- 
 dale " added those minuter touches which 
 soften and harmonize it." Thus, for ex- 
 ample, to turn to his version of the Psalms, 
 which may still be read almost unchanged 
 in the EngHsh Book of Common Prayer, it 
 is to Coverdale that we owe such musical 
 renderings as, " My flesh and my heart 
 faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, 
 and my portion for ever." " Cast me not 
 away from Thy presence, and take not 
 Thy Holy Spirit from me." " For Thy 
 lovingkindness is better than life ; my lips 
 shall praise Thee." While, as illustrations 
 of the man and of the time, the following 
 quaint renderings may be given — " bare it 
 in hir nebb " (Gen. viii. 1 1) ; " cast a pece of 
 a mylstone upon Abimelech's heade, and 
 brake his brane panne " Qudg. ix. 53) ; 
 21 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 " the foolish bodyes saye in their hertes : 
 Tush, there is no God " (Ps. xiv. i) ; " there 
 is no more Triacle at Galaad " (Jer. viii. 22). 
 
 2. Other Sixteenth-Century Versions. 
 
 Other translations now followed in rapid 
 succession, one of which is generally known 
 as Matthew's Bible (1537). Its real editor, 
 however, was a certain John Rogers, after- 
 wards the proto-martyr in the Marian 
 persecution, who perhaps adopted the alias 
 of Thomas Matthew to hide his connexion 
 with Tindale. For the whole of the New 
 Testament, and about half of the Old 
 Testament, are really Tindale's work, while 
 the remainder is Coverdale's. Like the 
 second edition of Coverdale's Bible, the 
 new edition bears to be " set forth with the 
 Kinges most gracious lycece," and Crom- 
 well, instigated by Cranmer, further ob- 
 tained Henry viii.'s permission that " the 
 same may be sold and read of every person, 
 without danger of any act, proclamation, 
 or ordinance heretofore granted to the 
 22 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 ordinary." Hence it came about that " by 
 Cranmer's petition, by Crumwell's influence, 
 and by Henry's authority, without any 
 formal ecclesiastical decision, the book was 
 given to the English people, which is the 
 foundation of the text of our present 
 Bible. From Matthew's Bible — itself a 
 combination of the labours of Tindale 
 and Coverdale — all later revisions have 
 been successively formed." ^ 
 
 Not yet satisfied with any of the existing 
 versions, Cromwell called in the aid of 
 Coverdale to prepare yet another version, 
 which might rank as a National Bible. 
 The work of printing was begun in Paris, 
 but before it was completed the Inquisition 
 stepped in, and it was with great difficulty 
 that the precious sheets were saved and the 
 presses sent over to England. There the 
 work was soon finished, and in April 1539 
 the Great Bible, as being the Bible " in the 
 largest volume," was issued from the press. 
 
 ^ Westcott, A General V'leiv of the History of the 
 English Bible f new edition by W. A. Wright, London, 
 1905, p. 7 if. 
 
 23 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 In 1540 a new edition was called for, 
 containing a long Preface by Archbishop 
 Cranmer, which has led to its being called 
 Cranmer's Bible, while five other editions 
 followed rapidly within the next eighteen 
 months. 
 
 Every effort was made to get the people 
 to accept the new version, Cromwell, as the 
 king's vicegerent, issuing instructions to the 
 clergy to provide without delay " one boke 
 of the whole Bible of the largest volume 
 in Englyshe," to be set up in the churches, 
 and to " expresslye provoke, stere [stir], and 
 exhorte every parsone [person] to rede the 
 same, as that whyche ys the verye lively 
 worde of God." Whatever the clergy may 
 have thought, the opportunity thus afforded 
 was gladly taken advantage of by the people, 
 and in the aisle of some country church it 
 was a common sight to see an eager crowd 
 gathered round the chained Bible, while 
 some one more educated than the rest read 
 aloud. 
 
 We must not, however, imagine that this 
 open reading of the Scriptures was every- 
 
 24 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 where viewed with favour. Thus, to con- 
 fine ourselves to what took place in Scotland, 
 on 1st March 1539, through the influence of 
 Cardinal Beaton, five persons were burnt 
 on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, apparently 
 for no other crime than that they " did not 
 hesitate to study the books both of the 
 Old and New Testament." And at the 
 trial of one of them, the Bishop of Dunkeld 
 actually made it a subject of boasting — " I 
 thank God that I never knew what the Old 
 or New Testament was." This deplorable 
 state of matters was not, however, long 
 allowed to continue. In 1543 it was pro- 
 posed in the Parliament meeting at Edin- 
 burgh that " all the lieges in this realm may 
 read the Scriptures in our native tongue," 
 and proclamation to the above effect was 
 duly made at the Market Cross. And so 
 eagerly was the privilege taken advantage 
 of, that twenty-five years later John Knox 
 in describing the effects of this Act was able 
 to write : " This was no small victory of 
 Christ Jesus. . . . Then might have been 
 seen the Bible lying almost upon every 
 
 25 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 gentleman's table. The New Testament 
 was borne about in many men's hands." 
 
 The Bible to which Knox refers in these 
 words was one in whose production he 
 himself in all probability had a share, though 
 for its story we must turn from Scotland 
 to Geneva. 
 
 In the troublous times following the 
 accession of Queen Mary, a number of the 
 leading Reformers had taken refuge in the 
 city of Calvin and Beza, and there, as they 
 themselves tell us, " We thought we could 
 bestow our labours and study in nothing 
 which could be more acceptable to God, 
 and comfortable to His Church, than in the 
 translating of the Scriptures into our native 
 tongue." 
 
 The result was that in 1560 there appeared 
 the famous Genevan Bible, often familiarly 
 known as the Breeches Bible from its 
 rendering of Gen. iii. 7, " They sewed fig- 
 tree leaves together, and made themselves 
 breeches." 
 
 The translation, as a whole, was due to 
 the combined labours of William Whitting- 
 26 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 ham, Thomas Sampson, and Anthony Gilby, 
 and deserves high praise from the care that 
 was bestowed upon it. Many of its render- 
 ings were very feHcitous, and have passed 
 through it into the Authorized Version, while 
 its numerous notes, combined with the con- 
 venient size in which it appeared, did much 
 to account for the popularity it long enjoyed. 
 It was not to be expected, however, that 
 the successors of Cromwell and Cranmer 
 would look with favour on a translation 
 from the school of Calvin, and containing 
 so many " prejudicial notes." Accordingly, 
 in 1563-64, Archbishop Parker set on foot 
 a scheme for the revision of Coverdale's 
 version, and in 1568 the Bishops' Bible, 
 so called from the number of bishops en- 
 gaged on it, was completed, and a copy 
 presented to Queen Elizabeth. An effort 
 was made at the same time that it alone 
 should be licensed " to draw to one uni- 
 formity." But this Hcence was never 
 granted, and any authority which the new 
 version enjoyed was due to episcopal, 
 rather than to royal, support. As a trans- 
 27 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 lation, indeed, the Bishops' Bible suffered 
 from the inequality inevitable to a work 
 which had been produced by a number of 
 independent workers, but it is hardly fair 
 to characterize it as " the most unsatis- 
 factory and useless of all the old trans- 
 lations." ^ On the contrary, various por- 
 tions of it are marked by a careful study 
 of the Greek original, and not a few of the 
 variations from previous translations, intro- 
 duced by its editors, have found their way 
 into the Authorized Version. 
 
 Before, however, we come to this version, 
 there is still another translation to be 
 noticed, which, like Tindale's and the 
 Genevan, was produced in exile. At the 
 beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 
 certain English Roman Catholics had taken 
 refuge on the Continent, and to three of 
 these refugees — William Allen, Gregory 
 Martin, and Richard Bristow — the credit 
 of the new version principally belongs. 
 
 The first part to appear was the New 
 Testament, " translated faithfully into Eng- 
 
 1 Lovett, The Printed English Bible ^ p. I20. 
 28 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 lish out of the authentical Latin, according 
 to the best corrected copies of the same, 
 dihgently conferred with the Greeke and 
 other editions in divers languages." This 
 was pubHshed in Rheims in 1582, and was 
 followed in 1609-10 by the publication at 
 Douai of the Old Testament which had 
 been previously completed, but had been 
 kept back " for lack of good meanes." 
 From its extreme adherence to " the old 
 vulgar approved Latin," the Rheims and 
 Douai Bible is often very stilted in ex- 
 pression and in style, while its markedly 
 polemical notes would in themselves have 
 prevented its gaining anything like general 
 acceptance. 
 
 3. The Authorized Version. 
 
 At the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century then, we meet with three versions 
 of the Bible in more or less general use. 
 There was the Great Bible of Henry viii., 
 still to be seen chained to the desk in many 
 country churches ; there was the Genevan 
 29 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 Bible, the favourite Bible of the people ; 
 and there was the Bishops' Bible, sup- 
 ported by ecclesiastical authority. Such 
 a state of things could not, however, con- 
 tinue, and the way lay open for the advent 
 of a new version, which was gradually to 
 supersede all its rivals, and become for 
 three centuries the Bible of all English- 
 speaking peoples. 
 
 Regarding this version, it is certainly 
 strange, considering its importance, how 
 little is known regarding its origin, which 
 is generally traced to a chance remark of 
 Reynolds, the Puritan leader, at the 
 Hampton Court Conference convened by 
 King James vi. in 1604, " that there might 
 be a new translation of the Bible because 
 those which were allowed in the reign of 
 King Henry viii. and Edward vi. were 
 corrupt and not answerable to the truth of 
 the original." But it is interesting to 
 notice that, so far at least as the King was 
 concerned, the way had been prepared three 
 years before by certain proceedings at a 
 meeting of the General Assembly of the 
 30 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 Church of Scotland at Burntisland, at 
 which he was present. On that occasion 
 a similar proposal " for a new translation 
 of the Bible, and the correcting of the 
 Psalmes in meeter " was thrown out, and 
 the historian Spottiswood has told us 
 that " his majesty did urge it earnestly, 
 and with many reasons did persuade the 
 undertaking of the work, showing the 
 necessity and the profit of it. . . . Speaking 
 of the necessity, he did mention certain 
 escapes in the common translation, . . . 
 and when he came to speak of the Psalms, 
 did recite whole verses of the same, showing 
 both the faults of the metre and the discrep- 
 ance from the text. It was the joy of all 
 that were present to hear it, and bred not 
 little admiration in the whole Assembly." ^ 
 And though nothing further came of this at 
 the time, the idea of revision was certainly 
 suggested to James's mind, and we can 
 understand the eagerness with which at 
 Hampton Court he fell in with Reynolds's 
 
 1 History of the Church of Scotland^ Edinburgh edition, 
 1850, iii. p. 98. 
 
 31 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 suggestion, and expressed the wish that 
 " some especial pains should be taken in 
 that behalf for one uniform translation ; 
 professing that he could never yet see a 
 Bible well translated in English, but the 
 worst of all his Majesty thought the Geneva 
 to be." Nor was this all, but James showed 
 an active interest in the work by proposing 
 that the new translation should be under- 
 taken by " the best learned in both the 
 universities, after them to be reviewed by 
 the bishops and the chief learned of the 
 Church; from them to be presented to the 
 Privy Council ; and lastly to be ratified 
 by his royal authority ; and so this whole 
 Church to be bound unto it and none 
 other." 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the Royal 
 favour bestowed upon it, the actual work 
 was not commenced until 1607, and it was 
 1 61 1 before the new version was published. 
 Its title ran : 
 
 " The Holy Bible, conteyning the Old 
 Testament, and the New : Newly Trans- 
 lated out of the Originall tongues : & with 
 
 32 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 the former Translations diligently com- 
 pared and reuised by his Maiesties speciall 
 Comandement. Appointed to be read in 
 Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert 
 Barker, Printer to the Kings Most Excellent 
 Maiestie. Anno Dom. 1611." 
 
 It will be noticed that the word 
 Authorized, by which the new version 
 has come to be known, is not here appHed 
 to it, and, as a matter of fact, there is no 
 evidence that it was ever pubHcly sanctioned 
 by Convocation, or by ParHament, or by 
 the King. Only slowly, and by the force 
 of superior merit, did King James's version 
 attain its commanding position. It became 
 the " authorized " version, simply because it 
 was the best. 
 
 Nor indeed was it, strictly speaking, a 
 new translation, but rather a revision of 
 the principal versions that had preceded it. 
 And, consequently, through the Bibles of 
 the Reformation period, through Tindale, 
 through Wyclif, even through the early 
 paraphrasts, it links itself step by step with 
 some of the most stirring events in our 
 
 33 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 national history, and has obtained a hold 
 over the national mind and consciousness 
 unparalleled in the history of any other 
 English translation. 
 
 Of the general character of their work 
 the Translators themselves have given a 
 most interesting account in the striking 
 Preface, originally attached to their work, 
 which is understood to have been written 
 chiefly by Dr. Miles Smith. Thus they 
 assure us in the clearest manner that they 
 set themselves not " to make a new trans- 
 lation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good 
 one . . . but to make a good one better, or 
 out of many good ones one principal good 
 one, not justly to be excepted against." 
 And in order to secure this, they add that 
 they were in the first instance careful to 
 compare the renderings of the Bishops' Bible, 
 which formed the basis of their work, with 
 the original Hebrew and Greek — " the two 
 golden pipes, or rather conduits, where- 
 through the olive branches empty them- 
 selves into the gold. ... If truth be to 
 be tried by these tongues, then whence 
 
 34 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 should a translation be made, but out of 
 them ? " 
 
 The result is that in the Authorized 
 Version we find many literal and exact 
 renderings introduced for the first time, 
 while the appropriateness of the vocabulary 
 and the beauty of the style have gained for 
 it a hold over the national mind and con- 
 sciousness unparalleled in the history of any 
 previous version. 
 
 None, indeed, have shown themselves 
 more ready to admit the commanding merits 
 of the Authorized Version than those who 
 in 1870 were appointed to revise it. " We," 
 so the New Testament revisers tell us in 
 their Preface, " have had to study this 
 great Version carefully and minutely, line 
 by line ; and the longer we have been 
 engaged upon it the more we have learned 
 to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its 
 power, its happy turns of expression, its 
 general accuracy, and, we must not fail to 
 add, the music of its cadences, and the 
 felicities of its rhythm." And the testi- 
 mony of Faber, after his secession to the 
 
 35 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 Church of Rome, to the same effect is often 
 quoted. Speaking of the marvellous English 
 of the Authorized Version, he says : " It 
 lives on the ear like a music that can never 
 be forgotten, like the sound of church bells 
 which the convert scarcely knows how he 
 can forgo. Its felicities often seem to be 
 things rather than words. It is part of 
 the national mind, and the anchor of the 
 national seriousness. . . . The memory of 
 the dead passes into it. The potent tradi- 
 tions of childhood are stereotyped in its 
 verses. It is the representative of a man's 
 best moments ; all that there has been 
 about him of soft and gentle and pure and 
 penitent and good, speaks to him for ever 
 out of his EngHsh Bible." 
 
 4. The Revised Version. 
 
 In these circumstances the very idea 
 of revision might well seem to have been 
 presumptuous. And yet there were not a 
 few circumstances which, towards the close 
 of the nineteenth century, combined to 
 
 36 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 render such a task not only advisable but 
 necessary, if the English reader was to be 
 in the best possible position for having the 
 exact sense of the original before him. 
 
 For one thing, as we shall see more fully 
 afterwards, many of the English words used 
 by the Translators of 1611 had become 
 antiquated, or in the course of three 
 centuries had so changed in meaning as no 
 longer to be understood in the manner that 
 was at first intended. And what is more 
 important, earlier and better texts of the 
 original had become available, involving 
 many important changes of reading. Thus, 
 to confine ourselves to the New Testament, 
 while the Translators of 161 1 had access 
 only to a few late Greek manuscripts, at 
 least two manuscripts of the highest im- 
 portance, belonging to the fourth century, 
 were now available. The knowledge of the 
 versions of the Early Church had also 
 greatly increased, and vastly improved aids 
 in the matter of Lexicons and Grammars 
 had placed scholars in a far more favourable 
 position than any of their predecessors for 
 
 37 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 removing the inaccuracies that had crept 
 into previous translations. 
 
 In consequence, numerous changes had 
 from time to time been silently introduced 
 into successive issues of the Authorized 
 Version, while various private attempts at 
 revision had done much to prepare the minds 
 of people for some more comprehensive 
 scheme. It was not, however, until May 
 1870 that that scheme matured, when, 
 acting on a report of a Committee appointed 
 in the preceding February to consider the 
 matter, the Convocation of the Province of 
 Canterbury decided to " nominate a body 
 of its own members to undertake the work 
 of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite 
 the co-operation of any eminent for scholar- 
 ship, to whatever nation or religious body 
 they may belong." 
 
 For the Rules drawn up for the Revisers' 
 guidance, and for the manner in which they 
 carried through their work, it must be 
 enough to refer to their own Prefaces, but 
 pointed attention may be drawn to the 
 importance of taking note, not only of the 
 
 38 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 new renderings in the text, but of the 
 marginal alternatives. The Revisers had 
 been instructed " to make or retain no 
 change in the Text on the second final 
 revision by each Company, except two 
 thirds of those present approve of the same," 
 and the result v^^as that many important 
 emendations, that had approved themselves 
 to what we may call the more " progressive " 
 section of the Revisers, having failed to 
 secure the necessary support, were rele- 
 gated to the margin. The strength of the 
 evidence for these alternative readings is, 
 however, becoming increasingly recognized, 
 and when accordingly the University Presses 
 recently issued an edition of the Revised 
 Version without these marginal notes, they 
 did a grave wrong to one of the most valuable 
 portions of the Revisers' work.^ 
 
 1 The most useful edition of the Revised New Testa- 
 ment for students is undoubtedly the edition " with Fuller 
 References," which was published in 19 lo, incorpora- 
 ting a body of references originally prepared for the New 
 Testament Company by two of their number, and enabling 
 the reader, with an accuracy and completeness unknown 
 before, to compare Scripture with Scripture. 
 
 39 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 To return, however, to the work itself. 
 The first part to be completed was the New 
 Testament, which, after more than ten 
 years of unremitting labour, was published 
 in 1 88 1, to be followed four years later by 
 the Revised Old Testament. The title of 
 the completed work, which, though only 
 one in a long series of revisions, has come 
 to be known as far excellence the Revised 
 Version, ran simply : 
 
 "The Holy Bible containing the Old 
 and New Testaments translated out of the 
 original tongues : being the version set 
 forth A.D. 1611 compared with the most 
 ancient authorities and revised." 
 
 It might have been expected that, if 
 only on the ground of its greater faithful- 
 ness to the original, the new version would 
 speedily have supplanted the old in general 
 use. But whether it be owing to a natural 
 conservatism with regard to a version, 
 hallowed by so long a history and by so 
 many sacred memories, or to certain 
 blemishes of force and style often attributed 
 to the Revised Version itself, this has not 
 40 
 
The Later Versions 
 
 proved to be the case. And there seems 
 to be a growing danger that even students 
 will not continue to avail themselves so 
 fully as they ought of the invaluable assist- 
 ance which the new version brings within 
 their reach. 
 
 It is to try and obviate this, and show how 
 much may be learned from a comparative 
 study of the two versions that the remaining 
 sections of this little book have been written. 
 
 41 
 
PART II 
 
 THE PRACTICAL USE OF THE REVISED 
 VERSION 
 
NEGATIVELY— ITS REMOVING OF 
 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 What was said at the close of the previous 
 section will have shown that it is not the 
 substitution of the Revised for the Author- 
 ized Version that we are at present pleading 
 for. That, if it ever takes place, can only 
 be brought about through the new Version's 
 gradually winning its way through its own 
 superior merits, as the old in its time had 
 to do. All that we are in the meantime 
 concerned with is the value to all Bible 
 students of a careful study of the two 
 versions side by side, and the fresh light 
 which in consequence is continually cast 
 upon the best-known words and scenes. 
 
 I. It arrests Attention. 
 
 We begin then at once by noticing that 
 this comparative study of the two versions, 
 
 45 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 even if it does nothing else, is of the utmost 
 importance to the ordinary reader in arrest- 
 ing his attention. 
 
 We all know how our very familiarity 
 with the language of Scripture is apt to 
 lead to our reading in a careless, perfunctory 
 way, supplying words and finishing verses it 
 may be from memory, and so falling into 
 many inaccuracies and errors. But when 
 we read with a Parallel New Testament 
 in our hands, comparing verse with verse, 
 and word with word, we are constantly 
 being brought up by some slight, though 
 it may prove very significant, change, and 
 so being led to inquire what exactly the 
 sacred writer says. 
 
 For here let me dispose in passing of 
 the objection sometimes brought against the 
 Revised Version by those who have only 
 examined it superficially — namely, that the 
 changes in it from the Authorized Version 
 are neither numerous enough nor im- 
 portant enough to make it worth while 
 referring to. Of the importance of the 
 changes we shall learn more directly ; but, 
 
 46 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 as regards their number, it has been estim- 
 ated that in the New Testament " there 
 are in all over 36,000 departures from King 
 James's Version in the English text, and 
 (probably included in the former) nearly 
 6000 changes in the Greek text." ^ I 
 know, of course, the counter - objection 
 that will at once be raised, that many of 
 these changes are quite unnecessary, and 
 in no way affect the sense. But when we 
 remember that in the case of changes caused 
 by a variety of reading in the original Greek, 
 a majority of two-thirds of the Company 
 present had to be secured on the final 
 revision, and that no change was adopted 
 without being first carefully scrutinized in 
 the interests of faithfulness by a large and 
 representative body of scholars, we may be 
 sure that all merit our most careful con- 
 sideration, and contribute their share in 
 bringing out the true meaning of the text. 
 To return, however, to the point immedi- 
 ately before us, " it would not, I imagine " — 
 
 1 See S chaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the 
 English Version, New York, 1883, p. 418. 
 
 47 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 and here I gladly avail myself of the weighty 
 words of Archbishop Trench * — "be for 
 most of us unprofitable to discover that 
 the words in which the truth has hitherto 
 reached us, are exchangeable for other, in 
 some places, it may be, for better, words. 
 The shock, unpleasant and unwelcome as it 
 would perhaps prove at the first, might yet 
 be a startling of many from a dull, lethargic, 
 unprofitable reading of God's Word ; a 
 breaking up of that hard crust of formality 
 which so easily overgrows our study of the 
 Scripture ; while in the rousing of the 
 energies of the mind to defend the old, 
 or, before admitting, thoroughly to test the 
 new, more insight into it might be gained, 
 with more grasp of its deeper meaning, than 
 years of lazy familiarity would have given." 
 An example may make this clearer. Let 
 us take a very familiar passage, which bears 
 directly upon our work as preachers and 
 teachers, the Parable of the Sower in 
 Matt. xiii. 1-23. In the Revised Version 
 
 1 On the jiuthori%ed Version of the New Testament^ 
 London, 1859, p. 214 f. 
 
 48 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 it opens not " Behold a sower went forth 
 to sow," but " Behold the sower," where 
 the definite article, if it does not suggest 
 some sower actually at work in a field close 
 at hand, at least points to him as the repre- 
 sentative of his whole class. It is " as he 
 sowed " too, as he was carrying out his pur- 
 pose, in the very process of sowing,^ that 
 the things about to be related happened. 
 Passing over such slight changes as " the 
 birds " for " the fowls " and " devoured 
 them " for " devoured them up " in ver. 4, 
 we come in ver. 5 to the important sub- 
 stitution of " upon the rocky places " for 
 " upon stony places." The latter naturally 
 leads us to think of a field covered with 
 loose stones, which is clearly out of keeping 
 with the fate of the seed which fell upon it. 
 Indeed it is often just such fields which 
 are the most productive, through the stones 
 helping the soil to retain its moisture. 
 Whereas the " rocky places " bring before 
 us a characteristic feature of the corn-lands 
 of Galilee — a rocky bed covered over with 
 
 ^ iv T<3 (jTretpeLv avTov, 
 
 49 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 a thin sprinkling of earth, in which the seed 
 from its nearness to the warm surface would 
 spring up quickly, but would as quickly 
 wither away. Again it is " upon the 
 thorns " and not " among thorns " that 
 other seeds fell, upon soil, that is, in which 
 the seeds of thorns lay already lurking, 
 rather than among growing and flourish- 
 ing thorn-plants, which every sower would 
 be careful to avoid. While once more we 
 cannot but recognize the precision which 
 the definite article again gives to the fourth 
 kind of soil, " the good ground," though 
 unfortunately our English idiom prevents 
 us giving its proper emphasis to the article 
 which in the Greek text is again repeated 
 before the adjective — " the ground " which 
 (in contrast to the kinds of ground already 
 mentioned) is specifically " the good " 
 ground.^ 
 
 Similarly, to pass to our Lord's inter- 
 pretation of the Parable, it is " the evil one " 
 rather than " the wicked one," the same 
 Enemy from whom we are taught to ask 
 
 ^ T^v yrjv Tr]v KaXi^v. 
 
 so 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 deliverance in the Lord's Prayer (Matt. vi. 
 13, R.V.), who snatcheth away that which 
 " hath been sown," the perfect participle 
 bringing out that, while the sowing was 
 completed, the seed still lay undisturbed in 
 the heart of the wayside hearer. Or as 
 this hearer is described in words which 
 identify the seed with the person receiving 
 it, a truth quite lost sight of in the Author- 
 ised rendering, '' This is he that was sown 
 by the way side." Just as the seed repro- 
 duces itself in the grain, so the living truth 
 reproduces itself in the heart of all by 
 whom it is welcomed — a further assurance 
 of what in our teaching we need so con- 
 stantly to be reminded of, that at best we 
 are sowers : the word of the Lord must be 
 left to find its own " free course," or more 
 literally to " run and be glorified " (2 Thess. 
 iii. I, R.V.). 
 
 In the next class of hearers again the 
 Revised Version alone preserves the parallel 
 between the ofttimes hasty reception and 
 the equally hasty rejection of the Word — 
 " straightway with joy receiveth it . . . 
 
 SI 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 straightway he stumbleth." The changes 
 of " by and by " into " straightway " and 
 " is offended " into " stumbleth " in this 
 last clause have also their interest. Even 
 at the time when the Authorized Version 
 was made, " by and by " was beginning to 
 lose some of its original force of " immedi- 
 ately," and this weakening tendency, owing 
 to the procrastinating habits of men, has 
 gone steadily on, so that now we always 
 refer '' by and by " to a more or less remote 
 period. But the Greek word^ here means 
 " at once," " straightway," and should be 
 rendered accordingly. '* Stumbleth," again, 
 is a clear gain over " is offended," which 
 conveys to any but the educated reader an 
 altogether different sense from what is in- 
 tended. And yet once more, we are now 
 told of the good hearer not that he " also 
 beareth fruit," a self-evident proposition, 
 but that he " verily " beareth it. Fruit is 
 the certain result of his being good. 
 
 So far then from a close attention to 
 the exact words of the original being profit- 
 
 52 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 less, enough has, I hope, been said to prove 
 that it at least leads us to ask, What exactly 
 did our Lord or His Evangelist say ? and 
 so awakens interest and stimulates inquiry 
 even with regard to those points which we 
 think that we have perfectly understood 
 before. 
 
 2. It clears up Many Obscurities. 
 
 But the Revised Version does more than 
 this. It makes clear the meaning of many 
 words and phrases which, as they stand 
 in the older version, are, if not actually 
 unintelligible, certainly obscure. 
 
 Take a very obvious class of examples 
 which has been suggested to us already. 
 In the Authorized Version, owing to the 
 period when it was written and its subse- 
 quent long history, there is necessarily an 
 archaic style and mode of speech. And 
 so far well. It lifts the sacred language 
 of Scripture above all mere coUoquiaHsm, 
 and gives it a strength and dignity of its 
 own. One has only to glance at some of 
 
 53 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 the attempts which have been made to 
 modernize the diction of our version to see 
 how terribly it has suffered in the process. 
 
 But it is different with regard to those 
 words and phrases which have so altered 
 their meaning since the Authorized Version 
 was made that they are now liable to be 
 understood in an altogether misleading 
 sense. Here obviously some change has to 
 be made. A very commonly cited instance 
 is the familiar precept, "Take no thought 
 for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye 
 shall drink " (Matt. vi. 25), which at first 
 sight seems to conflict strangely with the 
 well-established rules of prudence and thrift. 
 But in old English " thought " had a note of 
 anxiety attached to it, which it has now lost, 
 and therefore to bring out the full force 
 of the original, we require to render with 
 the Revised Version, " Be not anxious 
 for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye 
 shall drink." Similarly Phil. iv. 6 now 
 runs : " In nothing be anxious ; but in 
 everything by prayer and supplication with 
 thanksgiving let your requests be made 
 
 54 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 known to God," and I Pet. v. 7 : " Casting 
 all your anxiety upon Him, because He 
 careth for you," where a significant dis- 
 tinction of words lost in our English Version 
 (" Casting all your care upon Him, for He 
 careth for you ") is also brought out. 
 
 In like manner, " occupy " is no longer 
 understood in its old sense of " lay hold of," 
 " employ," " trade," so that it is properly 
 replaced by the last term in the Parable 
 of the Pounds, " Trade ye herewith till I 
 come " (Luke xix. 13), with the further 
 advantage of preserving the parallel with 
 the statement two verses later, " what they 
 had gained by trading." And the same 
 applies to the substitution of " wallet " for 
 " scrip " (Matt. x. 10), a word which is apt 
 to be taken in its modern business mean- 
 ing,^ and of " interest " for " usury " (Matt. 
 XXV. 27), which is now only used of illegal 
 
 ^ The reference to the " wallet " gains still further in 
 significance, if, with Dr. Deissmann [Netu Light on the 
 Neiu Testament, p. 4ifF. ), we understand by it not a 
 travelling-bag, but a beggar's collecting-bag : the disciples 
 were not even to beg. 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 or exorbitant transactions. We seem too to 
 have a reversal of the usual process when in 
 Acts xxi. 15 we are told that St. Paul and 
 his companions " took up " their '' carriages," 
 until we learn from the Revised Version, 
 that " carriages " is here the old word for 
 " baggage." And there is no longer the 
 danger of its distinctively modern meaning 
 being attached to " compass " when in the 
 account of St. Paul's voyage to Italy we 
 read with the Revisers, " we made a circuit " 
 rather than " we fetched a compass," and 
 arrived at Rhegium (Acts xxviii. 13). 
 
 It would be easy to carry this line of 
 illustration further, but it must be sufficient 
 to draw attention to one or two words 
 which have practically reversed their mean- 
 ing since 161 1. Thus the verb "let" was 
 then = " hinder," though now we use 
 it in the sense of " permit," and though 
 the context might prevent us from mis- 
 understanding such a passage as Rom. i. 13, 
 " And I would not have you ignorant, 
 brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to 
 come unto you, (but was let (R.V. hindered) 
 
 56 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 hitherto)," the very obscure verse, 2 Thess. 
 ii. 7, is undoubtedly rendered still more 
 difficult to the ordinary reader by the 
 translation : ^' For the mystery of iniquity 
 doth already work : only he who now 
 letteth, will let, until he be taken out of the 
 way." It is a " restraining " not a " per- 
 mitting " power that is in view, in con- 
 formity with ver. 6, where the same Greek 
 word occurs, and this at least is made clear 
 when we read : " And now ye know that 
 which restraineth, to the end that he 
 [i,e. the man of lawlessness] may be revealed 
 in his own season. For the mystery of 
 lawlessness doth already work : only there is 
 one that restraineth now, until he be taken 
 out of the way. And then shall be revealed 
 the lawless one. . . ." 
 
 Or, to take another example suggested by 
 this last, how many fail to realize that 
 in Matt. xvii. 25, " Jesus prevented him, 
 saying, What thinkest thou, Simon ? " 
 really means, as Tindale had already shown, 
 " Jesus spake first to him, saying . . .," 
 or that in i Thess. iv. 15 those who are alive 
 
 57 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 at the Parousia shall not in our sense " pre- 
 vent them which are asleep," but rather 
 shall '' precede " them. The Thessalonians' 
 fear was that those who were already dead 
 when Christ came would have no part in 
 His Resurrection. So far from this being 
 the case, the Apostle assures them that it is 
 the dead in Christ who shall rise first, to be 
 followed by those who are alive, who are 
 left, at the time. 
 
 What an added force, too, is given by the 
 disappearance of the archaic " presently " 
 in Matt. xxi. 19, *' And immediately the 
 fig-tree withered away," and in Matt. xxvi. 
 53, " Or thinkest thou that I cannot beseech 
 my Father, and He shall even now send Me 
 more than twelve legions of angels ? " 
 
 Or, to take one instance from the very 
 numerous examples that might be cited 
 from the prepositions, when St. Paul states 
 in I Cor. iv. 4, '' For I know nothing by 
 myself ; yet am I not hereby justified : 
 but he that judgeth me is the Lord," we 
 naturally think that the Apostle means that 
 for all his knowledge he was dependent 
 
 58 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 not on himself, but on God, whereas " by " 
 is used in its old English sense of " against," 
 which, to avoid misunderstanding, has been 
 substituted for it in the Revised Version, 
 " For I know nothing against myself ; yet 
 am I not hereby justified : but he that 
 judgeth me is the Lord." St. Paul is at 
 the moment on his defence, and with 
 reference to certain charges that have been 
 brought against him by the Corinthians, 
 he declares that it is for him " a very small 
 thing " to be judged '' of man's judgement," 
 nor is he conscious in his own mind of having 
 done them any wrong. And yet, after all, 
 he does not rest his justification on this, 
 but rather leaves all in the hands of God, 
 the one true Judge. 
 
 But unintelligibility in the Authorized 
 Version does not only arise in this way. 
 With all our admiration, and it can hardly 
 be too strongly expressed, for the manner 
 in which the translation as a whole has been 
 executed, it cannot be denied that there 
 are many passages to v/hich, as they stand 
 at present, little or no sense can be attached. 
 
 59 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 The most noticeable examples of these 
 perhaps occur in the Old Testament in such 
 books as Job and the Psalms, but examples 
 may also be cited from the Gospels. Let me 
 mention two, where I venture to think 
 their very familiarity with the words has 
 in many cases prevented readers from real- 
 izing that they do not, and indeed cannot, 
 understand them in the ordinary version. 
 
 The first occurs in Mark vii. 10-12 : 
 " For Moses said. Honour thy father and 
 thy mother : and. Whoso curseth father or 
 mother, let him die the death. But ye say, 
 If a man shall say to his father or mother. 
 It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by what- 
 soever thou mightest be profited by me : 
 he shall he free. And ye suffer him no more 
 to do ought for his father, or his mother." 
 Now, what do these words mean ? With- 
 out the aid of some note or comment no 
 ordinary reader can tell. But when we read 
 them in the Revised Version we are at 
 least put on the right lines for understanding 
 them, though even then, from the difficulty 
 of the subject, some further explanation 
 60 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 is probably required: "For Moses said, 
 Honour thy father and thy mother ; and, 
 He that speaketh evil of father or mother, 
 let him die the death : but ye say, If a man 
 shall say to his father or his mother. That 
 wherewith thou mightest have been pro- 
 fited by me is Corban, that is to say, Given 
 to God ; ye no longer suffer him to do aught 
 for his father or his mother." What^ is 
 referred to is the Jewish custom, according 
 to which a person had merely to pronounce 
 the word Corhan over any possession, and 
 it was irrevocably dedicated to the Temple, 
 and could consequently be no longer used 
 for the benefit even of his parents. 
 
 My second example occurs in the same 
 chapter a few verses lower down. Jesus 
 has been explaining to His disciples the 
 importance of inward, as contrasted with 
 outward, defilement, and He proceeds, 
 " Are ye so without understanding also ? 
 Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing 
 from without entereth into the man, it 
 cannot defile him, because it entereth not 
 into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth 
 6i 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 out into the draught, purging all meats ? " 
 Again, as it stands, this last clause is meaning- 
 less. But by the change of a single letter in 
 the Greek a new reading is gained, and the 
 verse now concludes — " 7 his He said, making 
 all meats clean," being the Evangelist's 
 comment upon what he has just recorded, 
 a comment that gains still further in signifi- 
 cance when we remember that St. Mark's 
 Gospel was in all probability largely de- 
 pendent upon the recollections of the 
 Apostle Peter, who was taught in so striking 
 a manner that in God's sight nothing is 
 common or unclean (Acts x. 9-16). How 
 in later life St. Peter, brooding on his vision, 
 must have loved to connect it with those 
 words of His Master, enforcing, though he 
 had not at the time understood them, the 
 same truth ! 
 
 3. It corrects Erroneous Ideas. 
 
 Another use of the Revised Version lies 
 in the erroneous ideas which it corrects and 
 the difficulties which it removes. Let us 
 62 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 take one or two examples under each of 
 these heads. 
 
 First, erroneous ideas which are cor- 
 rected. In the Hst of the Twelve Apostles 
 in St. Matthew's Gospel we must have been 
 astonished, or should have been astonished, 
 if we had stopped to think, to find one of 
 them described as " Simon the Canaanite " 
 (x. 4), as if he belonged to the heathen 
 stock which the Israelites had failed to root 
 wholly out of the Promised Land. But 
 the true reading is " Simon the Cananaean " 
 or, as the margin suggests, " Simon the 
 Zealot," proving that, before Christ's grace 
 seized him and converted him into a 
 Christian disciple, Simon had belonged to 
 that Jewish faction, who thought any deed 
 of violence justifiable for the recovery of 
 national freedom. 
 
 Similarly, to turn to a very different case, 
 when Hetodias' daughter danced before 
 King Herod, and he promised her what she 
 would ask, " she," so we read in our ordinary 
 version, ** being before instructed of her 
 mother, said. Give me here John Baptist's 
 
 63 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 head in a charger " (Matt. xiv. 8). But the 
 Revised Version, correctly following the 
 Greek, has, " And she, being put forward by 
 her mother, saith . . ." clearly indicating 
 that the girl herself was unwilling to make 
 such a proposal, and had to be " put 
 forward," ^ urged on, as it were, by her 
 angry and revengeful mother, until, at 
 length, as we learn from Mark vi. 25, " she 
 came in straightway with haste unto the 
 King, and asked, saying, I will that thou 
 forthwith give me in a charger the head 
 of John the Baptist," as if it were an errand 
 she would gladly have quickly over. 
 
 Turning to difficulties removed by the 
 Revised Version, the statement of Luke iii. 
 23 that after His Baptism, " Jesus Himself 
 began to be about thirty years of age," is, 
 to say the least, somewhat unintelligible. 
 But there is no reason for any perplexity. 
 What the original says implies that '' Jesus 
 Himself, when He began to teach (so the 
 
 1 The same Greek verb (Trpo^i/Sa^o)) occurs in the 
 Received Text of Acts xlx. 33, ck hi rov 6)(Xov 
 7r/)0€/3i)3a(rav 'AXi^avhpov, 
 
 64 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 Revised Version fills up the blank), was 
 about thirty years of age." A proper 
 attention to the Greek again enables us to 
 appreciate the force of the woman's argu- 
 ment in Matt. xv. 27, for she does not say, 
 " yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which 
 fall from their masters' table," but, " for 
 even the dogs ..." In the very appella- 
 tion which the Lord had used, she finds 
 ground for assurance and hope. 
 
 Exactness of rendering similarly restores 
 harmony between the accounts of St. 
 Matthew and St. Luke as to the spot from 
 which the Sermon on the Mount was 
 spoken. In our old version the statements 
 seem directly contradictory. According to 
 the former, Jesus " went up into a moun- 
 tain : . . . and He opened His mouth, and 
 taught . . ." (Matt. v. i, 2) : whereas the 
 latter tells us, "He came down . . ., and stood 
 in the plain," and only then " lifted up His 
 eyes on His disciples, and said, Blessed be 
 ye poor" (Luke vi. 17, 20). But when we 
 read with the Revised Version in the latter 
 case, " and stood on a level place," we see 
 
 6s 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 that what happened was this. On the 
 previous evening Jesus went up '' into the 
 mountain " — where the definite article is 
 to be taken as pointing to the mountainous 
 region or barrier overhanging the Lake of 
 GaHlee — and there spent the night in 
 prayer. In the morning He chose His 
 Twelve Apostles, and then, going with 
 them to some " level spot " in the midst 
 of this hilly country, preached to them 
 and to the multitudes who had gathered 
 round. 
 
 In like manner the Revised Version is 
 successful in removing popular misappre- 
 hensions, if not actual difficulties, in not a 
 few well-known passages. Thus in the 
 Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke xvi. 
 I ff.) the substitution of " his lord " for 
 " the lord " in ver. 8 makes it perfectly 
 clear that it was his earthly master, and not 
 God, who " commended the unrighteous 
 steward," while the injunction, " Make to 
 yourselves friends by means of the mammon 
 of unrighteousness," sets the lesson drawn 
 in a very different light from " Make to 
 66 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 yourselves friends of the mammon of 
 unrighteousness," and the gain is further 
 increased by the correct reading in the 
 following clause, " that, when it "—that is, 
 the mammon of unrighteousness, and not 
 "ye," as in the Authorized Version — 
 *' shall fail, they (the friends whom you 
 have thus made) may receive you into the 
 eternal tabernacles." 
 
 Any doubt as to the true meaning of the 
 words which introduce the Parable of the 
 Pharisee and the Publican, as they were 
 originally printed in 1611 — "And He 
 spake this parable unto certain which 
 trusted in themselves that they were 
 righteous, and despised other " (Luke xviii. 
 ^)_is set at rest by the fuller and more 
 exact " and set all others at nought." 
 And of still greater importance is the 
 correction a few verses further on, where the 
 Pharisees' boast reads, " I give tithes of all 
 that I get," instead of " of all that I possess " 
 the tithe was paid not on what he pos- 
 sessed or had laid up, but on what he 
 acquired in the way of increase. Similar 
 
 67 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 attention to the tense of the same Greek 
 verb in Luke xxi. 19 shows that our Lord 
 did not intend to enforce the duty of 
 holding fast what is ours already, " In 
 your patience possess ye your souls," but, 
 in view of the troublous times that were 
 impending, cheered His disciples with the 
 promise — " In your patience ye shall win 
 your souls." ^ 
 
 Other passages which show gains in 
 clearness are Matt. xxii. 8, 13, where the 
 marginal notes show that two classes of 
 servants are referred to, the " bond-servants " 
 or slaves, who were sent to bid the guests 
 to the Marriage Feast, and the " ministers " 
 or angels, to whom was afterwards entrusted 
 the carrying out of the sentence of doom ; 
 Matt, xxiii. 35, " Zachariah . . . whom ye 
 slew between the sanctuary and the altar, 
 where the " sanctuary," or inner shrine of 
 the Temple, is distinguished from the 
 whole Temple precincts ; and Matt. xvii. 25, 
 where the Revisers, by substituting " half- 
 
 1 Of. also I Thess. iv. 4, where the translation of the 
 Terb is again amended. 
 
 68 
 
Its Removing of Difficulties 
 
 shekel " for " tribute money," show that 
 the reference is not to any civil tax, but 
 to the half-shekel which was payable to the 
 Temple annually by every Jew over twenty 
 years of age (see Exod. xxx. 13). 
 
 69 
 
II 
 
 POSITIVELY — ITS ADVANTAGES 
 AS COMPARED WITH THE 
 AUTHORIZED VERSION 
 
 I. It adds Graphic Touches to Many 
 Narratives. 
 
 A POSITIVE gain from the use of the Revised 
 V^ersion Hes in the graphic touches in which 
 it abounds, enabHng us to picture to our- 
 selves Gospel scenes in a way which was 
 before impossible. 
 
 Sometimes this results from a more 
 vivid rendering of the original, as in Mark 
 i. 27, where, after the healing of the man 
 with the unclean spirit, the multitude are 
 represented as questioning amongst them- 
 selves, saying, " What is this ? a new 
 teaching ! with authority He commandeth 
 even the unclean spirits, and they obey 
 Him " ; or in ch. ix. 22 f. when, to the 
 70 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 prayer of the father of the demoniac boy, 
 " If Thou canst do anything, have com- 
 passion on us, and help us," Jesus repHes, 
 catching up his words, and retorting his 
 condition on himself, " If thou canst ! " — 
 this is no question of My being able, but 
 of thy being able — " All things are possible 
 to him that believeth " ; or, in the Parable 
 of the Virgins, where the suddenness of the 
 bridegroom's arrival is brought clearly out, 
 " But at midnight there is a cry, Behold the 
 bridegroom ! Come ye forth to meet him " 
 (Matt. XXV. 6). 
 
 Or, to turn to a different set of examples, 
 we have seen already, in the case of the 
 Parable of the Sower, the gain in graphic- 
 ness from the proper recognition of the 
 definite article, and numerous similar 
 instances can be cited. Thus it was from 
 '' the pinnacle of the temple," some well- 
 known pinnacle, that the devil wished Jesus 
 to cast Himself down (Matt. iv. 5 ; Luke 
 iv. 9) ; " into the mountain," the high 
 ground overlooking the Lake of Galilee, 
 that Jesus went up when He spoke the 
 71 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. i) ; down 
 " the steep," the equally characteristic 
 steep precipices at a little distance from 
 the Lake, that the herd of swine rushed 
 (Matt. viii. 32) ; " in the open street " 
 rather than the indefinite '' in a place where 
 two ways met " that the disciples were 
 directed to find the colt (Mark xi. 4) ; 
 " the branches of the palm trees," that 
 lined the side of the road, that the multi- 
 tudes carried in welcoming Jesus to Jeru- 
 salem (John xii. 13); and "the seats of 
 them that sold the doves," which were 
 required by the Law for the purposes of 
 religious offering, that Jesus overthrew 
 (Matt. xxi. 12; Mark xi. 15). In St. 
 Mark's narrative of this last incident there 
 is a further correction of the same kind, 
 " all the nations " for " all nations," along 
 with one of those slight changes which at 
 first sight seem of no special significance, but 
 have an important bearing on the sense. 
 Our Lord's words, as given in the Authorized 
 Version, are, '' Is it not written. My house 
 shall be called of all nations the house of 
 72 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 prayer ? but ye have made it a den of 
 thieves." But in the Revised Version the 
 w^ords run, " My house shall be called a 
 house of prayer for all the nations," and 
 thereby not only is the passage brought 
 into exact agreement w^ith the prophecy 
 in Isaiah from v^hich it is taken (Isa. Ivi. 7), 
 but its full force is given to our Lord's 
 condemnation of the Jews. To them per- 
 haps it had seemed a matter of small 
 moment that the outer court, the court 
 of the Gentiles, should be profaned, so long 
 as the inner court, belonging especially to 
 themselves, was kept holy; whereas, as 
 Jesus now reminded them, it had been 
 announced by one of their own prophets 
 that His house was to be sacred alike to 
 the Gentile as to the Jew — " a house of 
 prayer for all the nations." 
 
 On the other hand, there are not a few 
 passages in which the older translators 
 have wrongly inserted a definite article 
 when there is none in the original. In 
 Luke ii. 12 the significance of the angelic 
 sign to the shepherds lay in the fact that 
 
 73 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 they would find not " the babe," but " a 
 babe," a babe to all outward appearance 
 like any human babe, " wrapped in swaddling 
 clothes, and lying in a manger." In John iv. 
 27 the disciples marvelled not because their 
 Master was speaking " with the woman," 
 as if they already knew all about this par- 
 ticular woman's past history, but " with 
 a woman," any woman, contrary to the 
 Rabbinical precept that prohibited all con- 
 versation with one of the other sex in public. 
 In Acts xvii. 23 the point of the inscription 
 on the altar at Athens lay in the fact that it 
 was addressed, " To an Unknown God." 
 And in i Tim. vi. 10 the love of money is 
 not described as " the root of all evil," as if 
 there were no other, but as " a root," one 
 out of many, " of all kinds of evil." 
 
 The proper translation of the tenses also 
 lends additional force to many passages. 
 Thus who does not feel the lifelike reality 
 of the present in such verses as Matt. iii. i, 
 " And in those days cometh John the 
 Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of 
 Judaea " (especially when taken with the 
 
 74 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 parallel in ver. 13, " Then cometh Jesus 
 from Galilee to the Jordan "), and still 
 more noticeably perhaps in St. Mark's 
 Gospel, where the Saviour is specially 
 depicted in His Divine energy and power, 
 passing from place to place on errands of 
 mercy — " And they go into Capernaum " 
 (i. 21), " And they found Him, and say 
 unto Him, All are seeking Thee " (i. 37), 
 " And straightway Jesus . . . saith unto 
 them " (ii. 8), " And He cometh into a 
 house " (iii. 19), " And there come His 
 mother and His brethren . . . And they 
 say unto Him . . . And He answereth 
 them, and saith . . . And looking round on 
 them . . . He saith . . ." (iii. 31 ff.), and 
 so in numerous other passages throughout 
 the Gospel. 
 
 Or, passing from the present to the 
 imperfect tense, instead of the general 
 statement that " the disciples of John and 
 of the Pharisees used to fast," we learn 
 from the resolved form of imperfect em- 
 ployed that they actually " were fasting " ^ 
 
 ^ ^crav . . . vya-T€vovT€<;. 
 
 IS 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 — were observing one of the weekly fasts 
 which the stricter schools of Judaism en- 
 forced — at the very time when the disciples 
 of Jesus had been engaged in feasting (Mark 
 ii. 1 8). And all must recognize the new 
 vividness imparted by a close observance of 
 the tense to such passages from the Fourth 
 Gospel as, " And the sea was rising by reason 
 of a great wind that blew " (vi. i8), " Jesus 
 was walking in the temple in Solomon's 
 porch " (x. 23), " The disciples say unto 
 Him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking 
 to stone Thee " (xi. 8). In Matt. iii. 14, 
 again, a too great definiteness is given to 
 the attitude of John towards Jesus, when He 
 came to be baptized, by the rendering, " But 
 John forbade Him." We have rather here 
 an example of the inchoate force of the 
 imperfect, which the Revisers have preserved 
 by translating, " But John would have 
 hindered Him." And similarly in Luke i. 59, 
 with reference to the bestowal of the Baptist's 
 own name we read not, " They called him," 
 but " They would have called him Zacharias, 
 after the name of his father." Another 
 
 76 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 significant touch in the same Gospel, which 
 unfortunately has been put in the margin, 
 lies in the statement that the woman who was 
 a sinner " kissed much " Jesus' feet (vii. 38), 
 or, still better, " kept on kissing " them. 
 
 We shall have to return to the new force 
 given to many doctrinal passages by the 
 proper translation of the Greek aorist 
 (see p. 104 f.), but meanwhile it may be well 
 to notice one or two perfects, where the 
 abiding force of the action described is 
 now brought out. A simple example is 
 afforded by John iv. 37 f. : " For herein is 
 the saying true. One soweth, and another 
 reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon 
 ye have not laboured : others have laboured 
 (A.V. laboured), and ye are entered into 
 their labours," where, as Bishop Westcott 
 has pointed out, " the labours of earlier 
 toilers for God are regarded not merely in 
 the past, but as bearing fruit in the present." ^ 
 
 Or to take another example, to which the 
 same writer has drawn special attention, in 
 
 1 Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the Neiv 
 Testament, London, 1897, p. 52, 
 
 77 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 view of its bearing on the authorship of 
 the Fourth Gospel. In John xix. 35 the 
 Authorized Version reads, " He that saw it 
 bare record, and his record is true," where 
 the use of the past tense has been claimed 
 as showing that the writer was referring 
 to an earlier witness now dead, and not to 
 himself, or he would have used the perfect. 
 But that is exactly what he did, " And 
 he that hath seen hath borne witness, and 
 his witness is true." And thus the cor- 
 rected rendering actually turns the force of 
 the argument in the opposite direction.^ 
 
 2. It throws Light on Eastern Manners 
 AND Customs. 
 
 Nothing helps more to bring home to a 
 congregation or class that the Bible is a 
 real book dealing with the lives of real 
 men and women, as to take every oppor- 
 tunity of pointing out to them the indica- 
 tions it contains of the marked differences 
 
 ^ Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New 
 Testament, p. 52. 
 
 78 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 between the Eastern and our Western 
 mode of life. No doubt these differences 
 can hardly be grasped from the Bible 
 narrative alone, without the aid of such well- 
 known books as Dr. William M. Thomson's 
 l^he Land and the Book, or the Rev. G. M. 
 Mackie's Bible Manners and Customs, but 
 the more exact renderings of the Revised 
 Version, and especially the literal translations 
 from the Greek contained in the margins, 
 at least suggest points for inquiry. 
 
 Thus the reference to thieves " who dig 
 through " and steal (Matt. vi. 19) points 
 to the mud walls of which many of the 
 Jewish houses w^ere built. The bottles 
 which were liable to burst with new wine 
 were " wineskins " or " skins used as bottles " 
 (Matt. ix. 17) which had become cracked 
 and shrivelled in the smoke. It was a 
 " cruse " or a " flask " of ointment, not a 
 " box," which the woman poured over 
 Jesus' head in Simon's house (Matt. xxvi. 7) ; 
 and certainly not a " writing-table," as we 
 understand it, but a " writing tablet," 
 the small tablet smeared with wax on which 
 
 79 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 words were traced with an iron pen, for 
 which Zacharias in his dumbness asked 
 (Luke i. 63). 
 
 How expressive too of the Jewish mode of 
 taking food is the general statement that 
 Jesus and His disciples " reclined " not " sat 
 at meat " (Matt. ix. 10, xiv. 19 ; Mark xiv. 
 18). They surrounded, that is, the low 
 stool or platform which in the East did 
 duty for a table, each resting on his elbow 
 with his unsandalled feet outstretched on 
 the couch : so that we can understand 
 further how on a certain occasion a woman 
 that was a sinner could come behind and 
 wash and kiss Jesus' feet (Luke vii. 38) — no 
 objection being taken to her entering, as 
 in the hospitable East all houses were left 
 open, and during a meal anyone who liked 
 could enter and look on. 
 
 What has just been said will also explain 
 the sudden change in St. John's attitude at 
 the Last Supper, which he himself describes 
 with vivid pictorial traits, wholly obliterated 
 in the Authorized Version. '' There was 
 at the table reclining in Jesus' bosom one 
 80 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon 
 Peter therefore beckoneth to him, and saith 
 unto him. Tell us who it is of whom He 
 speaketh. He leaning back, as he was, on 
 Jesus' breast " — with a quick, upward 
 movement, that is, raising himself from his 
 reclining attitude, and throwing his head 
 back on Jesus' breast — "saith unto Him, 
 Lord, who is it ? " (John xiii. 23-25 ; cf. 
 xxi. 20). 
 
 The oral instruction again, by means 
 of which alone at first the truths of the 
 Gospel were conveyed, is emphasized in the 
 margin of Luke i. 4, where the Evangelist 
 reminds Theophilus of the things " which 
 thou wast taught by word of mouth " ; 
 and the amended version of Luke iv. 20 
 recalls that it was a " roll " rather than a 
 " book," a parchment stretched out between 
 two rollers, on which the prophecy was 
 written ; and that it was to the " attendant," 
 the Chazzan or Clerk of the Synagogue, not 
 the " minister " in our sense, that Jesus 
 gave this back, when He had done reading. 
 
 81 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 3. It establishes Connexions between 
 Different Parts of Scripture. 
 
 This often arises from the observance 
 of the rule, to which as far as possible the 
 Revisers have adhered, of adopting a uni- 
 form rendering throughout for the same 
 word or phrase. The opposite, as is well 
 known, was rather the practice of the Trans- 
 lators of 1611. "Another thing," they 
 say in their Preface, " we think good to ad- 
 monish thee of (gentle Reader) that we have 
 not tied ourselves to an uniformity of 
 phrasing, or to an identity of words, as 
 some peradventure would wish that we 
 had done. . . . Truly, that we might not 
 vary from the sense of that which we had 
 translated before ... we were especially 
 careful. . . . But, that we should express 
 the same notion in the same particular 
 word ... we thought to savour more of 
 curiosity than wisdom, and that rather 
 it would breed scorn in the Atheist than 
 bring profit to the godly Reader. For is 
 82 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 the kingdom of God become words or 
 syllables ? " 
 
 But ingenious though this pleading is, it 
 is clear that, if the principal object of a 
 translation is to put the modern reader 
 as nearly as possible in the same position 
 as the reader of the original, this can only 
 be attained by the same word in the original 
 getting as far as possible the same rendering 
 in the translation. 
 
 The most important gains in this direction 
 occur probably in the Epistles, but they are 
 to be found also in the Gospels. Thus, 
 if the Greek adverb for " straightway " ^ 
 forms one of the keywords of St. Mark's 
 Gospel, occurring in it no fewer than forty 
 times, it is obvious that this should not be 
 obscured by its receiving five different 
 renderings — " straightway," " immedi- 
 ately," "forthwith," "anon," and "as 
 soon as " ; while the equally character- 
 istic " abide " ^ of St. John's Gospel is ren- 
 dered indiscriminately " abide," " remain," 
 "dwell," "continue," "tarry," and "en- 
 
 83 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 dure," two of these different renderings being 
 sometimes actually used in the same verse. 
 
 Who too does not recognize the gain of 
 bringing out the connexion in Luke iv. i 
 between the statement Jesus, " full of the 
 Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan," and 
 the statement " was led by the Spirit in 
 the wilderness during forty days " — a con- 
 nexion obscured in the Authorized Version 
 by the use in the first case of the archaic word 
 " Ghost " : ^ between our Lord's sad ad- 
 mission in John iii. ii, *' Ye receive not our 
 witness," and the taking up by the Evangelist 
 of the same word a few verses further on, 
 " And no man receiveth His witness " 
 (ver. 32) : between, to take another example 
 of the same emphatic word, " He (i.e. the 
 Spirit of truth) shall bear witness of Me," 
 and the immediately following, " Ye also 
 
 1 It is one of the gains of the American edition of the 
 Revised New Testament that the rendering " Holy 
 Spirit*' is uniformly adopted for "Holy Ghost." The 
 whole list of readings and renderings preferred by the 
 American Committee, as recorded at the close of our 
 Revised Testament, should be carefully studied. 
 
 84 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 bear witness " (John xv. 26, 27) : between 
 our Lord's injunction, " Work not for 
 the meat which perisheth . . .," and the 
 disciples' eager question, " What must we 
 do, that we may work the works of God ? " 
 (John vi. 27, 28) : between the identity of 
 che sin and its punishment, " He will 
 miserably destroy those miserable men " 
 (Matt. xxi. 41) ^ : and, a happier example, 
 between the teaching, " Every branch that 
 beareth fruit He cleanseth it, that it may 
 bear more fruit," and the gracious assur- 
 ance, showing that this work was accom- 
 plished in the Apostles, " Already ye are 
 clean because of the word which I have 
 spoken unto you " (John xv. 2, 3).^ 
 
 1 Cf. the amended renderings of i Cor. iii. 17, "If 
 any roan destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God 
 destroy"; Col. iii. 25 (margin), "For he that doeth 
 wrong shall receive again for the wrong that he hath done" ; 
 and 2 Pet. ii. 12, " But these, as creatures without reason, 
 born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, railing in 
 matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their destroy- 
 ing surely be destroyed." 
 
 2 See also such passages as Rom. iv. 3-8 ; i Cor. xi. 
 28-34 ; Rev. iv. 2-4. 
 
 8s 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 4. Other Examples. 
 
 These examples have been taken from 
 within the New Testament itself, but there 
 is another class of connexions which it is 
 most important to observe, the connexions, 
 namely, between the New Testament and 
 the Old, between the later and the earlier 
 Dispensation. We have our Lord's own 
 distinct statement that He came not " to 
 destroy," but "to fulfil" (Matt. v. 17); 
 and it is in perfect harmony with this that 
 a little later in the same discourse He 
 places His own teaching in contrast not 
 with what was said " by them of old time," 
 but with what was said " to them of old 
 time " (ver. 21). So far from annulling 
 God's previous Revelation, He only carried 
 it on to a higher stage by the substitution 
 of the inward for the outward, the spirit 
 for the letter. 
 
 Therefore it is that, in the accounts of the 
 institution of the Last Supper, we welcome 
 the change of " testament," a word now 
 86 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 generally used in a definite and restricted 
 sense, into the familiar Old Testament 
 " covenant " (Matt. xxvi. 28 and parallels, 
 I Cor. xi. 25), so bringing this last and highest 
 proof of God's love into direct line with all 
 His previous promises of grace ; and, in 
 the multitude's testimony regarding Jesus, 
 the substitution of the definite article for 
 the over-translated " that "— " This is of a 
 truth the prophet that cometh into the 
 world " (John vi. 14), so carrying back our 
 thoughts to the well-known prophet of 
 Deut. xviii. 15, for whose advent the Jews 
 had been anxiously waiting. 
 
 Similarly, in the case of another of our 
 Lord's titles, we know how ready the 
 EvangeHsts, and especially the Evangehst 
 Matthew, were to see in His ministry the 
 fulfilment of the prophecy regarding " the 
 servant of the Lord" in Isa. Hi. 13 ff. It 
 is most unfortunate, therefore, that this 
 connexion should be obscured to the 
 ordinary English reader of the Book of Acts 
 by the substitution of " son " or " child " 
 for " servant " in ch. iii. 13, 26, iv. 27, 30. 
 87 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 Passing to Proper Names, the Revisers 
 of the New Testament have not hesitated 
 for the sake of greater clearness to depart 
 from the Greek forms which, as a rule, were 
 followed in the Authorized Version, and to 
 recur to the Hebrew forms with which we 
 have become familiar in the Old. " Let us 
 just seek to realize to ourselves," says Arch- 
 bishop Trench, " the difference in the 
 amount of awakened attention among a 
 country congregation, which Matt. xvii. lo 
 would arouse, if it were read thus, ' And His 
 disciples asked him, saying, Why then say 
 the Scribes that Elijah must first come ? ' 
 as compared with what it now is likely to 
 create. Elijah is a person to them ; the 
 same who once raised the widow's son, who 
 on Mount Carmel challenged and overcame 
 alone the army of the prophets of Baal, who 
 went up in a fire-chariot to heaven. Elias 
 is for them but a name." ^ But this gain 
 and many similar ones are now secured to 
 us. " Abijah," " Hezekiah," " Isaiah," 
 " Zechariah," " EHsha," " Jud^a," meet us, 
 
 ^ On the Authorized f^ersion of the New Testament f p. 74. 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 where before we had the at best vague 
 designations, " Abia," " Ezekias," " Esaias," 
 "Zacharias," " Eliseus," "Jewry" (Matt, 
 i. 7, 10, iii. 3, xxiii. 35, Luke iv. 27, xxiii. 5) : 
 while *' Sharon " now takes the place of 
 " Saron " in Acts ix. 35, and " Kish " of 
 " Cis " in Acts xiii. 21. 
 
 Any confusion caused by these last ex- 
 amples may seem of comparatively little 
 moment, but it is different with the use 
 in the Authorized Version of the name 
 " Jesus " in Acts vii. 45 and Heb. iv. 8. 
 By the ordinary reader that name is at once 
 taken as referring to the Person of our Lord 
 Himself, and only when his Revised Version 
 shows him that it is the Old Testament 
 " Joshua " who is intended, can he under- 
 stand the two passages properly. 
 
 One other instance must be noticed in this 
 connexion. By us " Christ " has come to 
 be recognized as a Proper Name, and as 
 such it is constantly used in the Author- 
 ized Version without the definite article. 
 But as a matter of fact the word is always 
 employed in the Gospels, with certain 
 
 89 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 trifling exceptions,^ as a title or designation. 
 It is " the Christ," the Messiah, who is 
 thought of, who may, or may not, be identi- 
 fied with the historical Jesus, according to 
 the faith of the speaker. Thus Herod 
 inquires " where the Christ should be 
 born " (Matt. ii. 4) ; John the Baptist, 
 when he hears in his prison " the works of 
 the Christ," sends and asks, " Art Thou 
 He that cometh, or look we for another ? " 
 (Matt. xi. 2, 3) ; and our Lord Himself 
 meets the perplexities of the two disciples 
 on the Emmaus road with the question, 
 " Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these 
 things ? " (Luke xxiv. 26). The disciples, 
 trusting to their own interpretation of the 
 Scriptures, were turning away from a 
 suffering and crucified Messiah ; but now 
 from these very Scriptures the Risen Re- 
 deemer showed them that it was just because 
 of His sufferings that He was the Messiah, 
 that " the Christ " behoved " to suffer . . . 
 and to enter into His glory." 
 
 So true is it, that it is the end which is the 
 1 e.g. Matt. i. I ; Mark i. i ; John i. 17. 
 
 90 
 
Advantages of Revised Version 
 
 true test of every revelation, as we are again 
 reminded in the revised rendering of one 
 of our Lord's most familiar words. For it is 
 not so much an injunction, " Search the 
 Scriptures," that He lays upon His disciples, 
 as a warning against putting these same 
 Scriptures in a wrong place. " Ye search 
 the Scriptures," so the translation now 
 runs, " because ye think that in them ye 
 have eternal Hfe " — you substitute, that 
 is, the Book for the Person — forgetting 
 that " these [Scriptures] are they which bear 
 witness of Me ; and ye will not come to 
 Me, that ye may have hfe " (John v. 39, 40). 
 It is a warning of which we cannot be 
 reminded too often, for only as our study of 
 Holy Writ is drawing us ever closer to Him 
 Who is not only " the Way " but " the 
 Truth," and not only "the Truth" but 
 " the Life," can we hope to find Hfe either 
 for ourselves or for those whom we are 
 called upon to teach. 
 
 91 
 
PART III 
 
 THE DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 
 REVISED VERSION 
 
THE PERSON AND WORK OF 
 CHRIST 
 
 In the foregoing section, while ample 
 testimony was borne to the greater accuracy 
 and clearness of the new version, little or 
 nothing was said of its doctrinal significance. 
 It is not uncommon, indeed, to hear it 
 stated that the Revised Version has no 
 direct bearing upon doctrine, and that, 
 whatever other changes it may effect, it 
 will at least leave the cardinal articles of 
 the Christian faith exactly where it found 
 them. 
 
 In a sense, no doubt, this statement is 
 true. Though the witness of particular 
 texts may be altered, or even disappear 
 altogether, as in the case of the famous 
 proof -text for the Trinity (i John v. 7), the 
 general balance of doctrinal truth remains 
 
 95 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 unchanged. No essential article of our 
 creed is lost. But this is not to say that 
 no new light is cast upon any of these 
 articles, or that a more intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the exact form in which the 
 truths of Revelation were first announced 
 may not lead to a considerable modification 
 in much of our popular theology. It is 
 impossible in our present limits to estab- 
 lish this as fully as one would like. The 
 utmost that can be attempted is to indicate 
 a few of the passages in which the changes 
 made by the Revisers, whether caused by an 
 improved text or a more exact translation of 
 the original, appear to have a bearing upon 
 doctrinal truth. 
 
 I. The Person of Christ. 
 
 Thus, to begin with the doctrine of our 
 Lord's person, when we turn to the much 
 disputed passage, i Tim. iii. i6, it is to find 
 that the Revisers in their marginal note 
 pronounce strongly in favour of the reading 
 " He Who " instead of " God," and in con-. 
 96 
 
The Person and Work of Christ 
 
 sequence translate, " And without con- 
 troversy great is the mystery of godliness ; 
 He Who was manifested in the flesh." We 
 seem at first sight only to have loss. The 
 passage in this form can no longer be quoted 
 as a direct testimony to the Godhead of 
 Christ, but indirectly it surely implies 
 this in no uncertain way. Only of One 
 Who Himself existed before, could it be 
 said that He was '' manifested in the flesh." 
 But, even if it were otherwise, we are not 
 dependent upon this text for the proof of 
 Christ's Divinity, and any supposed loss 
 in this direction is more than made up by 
 the new and striking witness which we 
 gain to the personality of our religion. For 
 it is not, as we would naturally expect, a 
 neuter relative which follows the Greek 
 word for " mystery," but a masculine 
 pronoun : " the mystery — who." ^ The 
 mystery is not a thing, but a Person, not 
 any propositions about Christ, but Christ 
 Himself : He Who was manifested, justified, 
 seen, preached, believed on, received up in 
 
 ^ fJAJCTT/jpLOV' OS. 
 
 97 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 glory. ^ Or, as the same truth is expressed 
 in the amended version of Col. ii. 2, " the 
 mystery of God, even Christ." ^ While 
 with the description which follows, " in 
 Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge hidden," we may compare the 
 words of ch. i. 19, " For it was the good 
 pleasure oj the Father that in Him should 
 all the fulness dwell," rendered still more 
 emphatically in the margin, " For the whole 
 fulness oj God was pleased to dwell in Him." 
 The Son of God's love (i. 13),^ in (A.V., by) 
 whom all things were created (ver. 16), and 
 unto (A. v., for) whom, as to their goal, all 
 things tend, is Himself distinguished not 
 merely by " all fulness," but by " the 
 whole fulness," the Pleroma of all the 
 Divine attributes and powers. 
 
 1 See a striking sermon on " Personality of the Gospel " 
 by Dean Vaughan, in Authorized or Revised? London, 
 1882, p. 3fF. 
 
 2 It should be noted that the reading in this verse is 
 very uncertain. 
 
 3 How much more expressive than " His dear Son " 
 Cf. Augustine de Trinity xv. 19: " Filius caritatis ejus 
 nullus est alius, quam qui de substantia ejus est genitus." • 
 
 98 
 
The Person and Work of Christ 
 
 Other passages which, in their revised 
 form, bear more or less distinctly on the 
 Divinity of our Lord are John v. i8, where 
 the adjective is recognized as having the 
 full emphatic force, which it does not 
 always possess in late Greek, " but also 
 called God His own Father, making Himself 
 equal with God " ; Acts xvi. 7, where the 
 striking reading " the Spirit of Jesus " (not 
 simply, as in the Authorised Version, " the 
 Spirit ") implies that the Holy Spirit had 
 so taken possession of the Person of the 
 Exalted Jesus that He could be spoken of as 
 '' the Spirit of Jesus " ; 2 Cor. iv. 5, where 
 the sum of Apostolic teaching is declared 
 to be the preaching of " Christ Jesus as 
 Lord," " Lord " in the PauHne Epistles 
 being apparently generally used with refer- 
 ence to the risen and glorified Redeemer ; 
 Tit. ii. 13, where a slight change in the 
 translation and improved punctuation show 
 that " the appearing of the glory," the fulfil- 
 ment, that is, of the symbolical appearances 
 of " the glory of the Lord " in the Old 
 Testament, is associated with " our great 
 
 99 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 God and Saviour Jesus Christ," not two 
 persons, but one (cf. 2 Pet. i. i) ; and 
 I Pet. iii. 15, " Sanctify in your hearts 
 Christ as Lord," where, in borrowing his 
 language from Isa. viii. 13, the Apostle 
 directly identifies Christ with Jehovah, and 
 so attests His deity in the most unequivocal 
 manner. Archbishop Alexander indeed 
 singles out this verse as more than any 
 other assuring him of the Divinity of 
 Jesus, and adds that its " restoration 
 to its rightful force outweighs nearly all 
 that can be said against the Revised Ver- 
 sion." ^ 
 
 To these may be added the remarkable 
 marginal rendering " God only begotten," 
 in John i. 18, which points to One Who is 
 both God and Son ^ ; and John viii. 58, 
 " Before Abraham was, I am," where again 
 the marginal note makes clear that different 
 words are used in the original to describe 
 the being of Abraham and of Christ — 
 
 1 The Divinity of our Lord (in the series of " Helps to 
 Belief"), p. 66. 
 * /Aovoycv^s ©eos. 
 
 100 
 
The Person and Work of Christ 
 
 '' Before Abraham was born," came into 
 being from a previous non-existent state, 
 " I am," I necessarily and eternally am.^ 
 As an example of a slight but significant 
 change, may be mentioned the rendering 
 " offered " for " presented " in Matt. ii. ii, 
 bringing the verse into harmony with the 
 numerous passages in the Septuagint and 
 the New Testament, where the same Greek 
 word is used of religious offerings in worship 
 to God.* 
 
 With reference to the other side of our 
 Lord's person. His human nature, it must be 
 
 ^ Trpiv 'A/Spaafx, yeviaOai, eyto elfii. Cf. 2 Pet. i. 4, 
 " That through these ye may become partakers of the 
 divine nature." 
 
 2 7rpo(T(f>€p(x). It may be noted that the significant 
 change of tense in the two occurrences of this verb in 
 Heb. xi. 1 7 is now brought out in the Revised Version : 
 " By faith Abraham, being tried, hath offered up 
 (margin) Isaac: yea, he that had gladly received the 
 promises was offering up his only begotten son." " The 
 first verb [^Trpoaevrjvox^v, perfect tense] expresses the 
 permanent result of the offering completed by Abraham 
 in will: the second [jrpo(re(f>€p€v, imperfect tense], his 
 actual readiness in preparing the sacrifice which was not 
 literally carried into effect" (Westcott ad loc). 
 
 lOI 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 sufficient to point to Phil. ii. 5-8 with the 
 accompanying marginal notes, which here, 
 as throughout the Revised Version, are of 
 the utmost value in bringing the exact force 
 of the Greek before the English reader. 
 Starting with the thought of Christ's 
 Divinity, the Apostle proceeds to tell us 
 how He Who was thus originally in the form 
 of God counted not this equality of being 
 with God " a prize," a thing to be grasped 
 at or retained, as compared with what by 
 sacrifice He might effect for our sakes, but 
 " emptied Himself," this great act involving, 
 rather than followed by (as the Authorized 
 Version suggests), the two great steps, 
 " taking the form of a servant (bond- 
 servant)," and " being made (becoming) in 
 the likeness of men," while these in turn 
 led to the lowest step of all, " the death of 
 the Cross." How clearly as we note the 
 changes, and more particularly that one 
 bold expression " emptied Himself," so 
 different from the paraphrastic " made 
 Himself of no reputation," is the tremendous 
 reality of our Lord's humiliation brought 
 102 
 
The Person and Work of Christ 
 
 home to us. And in the verses that follow 
 what new dignity is added to the exaltation 
 by "the (not "a") name which is above 
 every name," which God gives to Jesus, 
 "in (not "at") which every knee should 
 bow." ^ There can be Httle doubt that the 
 name here referred to is the human name 
 Jesus, and not the Divine title Lord, as 
 many are tempted to imagine. And in 
 this connexion we may recall such passages 
 as the following, where the use of the simple 
 name fixes the emphasis on the person of the 
 Lord in His true humanity— Luke xxiii. 42, 
 " And he said, Jesus, remember me when 
 Thou comest in Thy Kingdom " ; i John i. 7, 
 " The blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us 
 from all sin" ; and Heb. iii. i, " Wherefore, 
 holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly 
 calUng, consider the Apostle and High 
 Priest of our confession, even Jesus." The 
 
 1 It is curious that the Authorized rendering " at the 
 name of Jesus,'* should first be found in the Genevan 
 Testament of 1557, and that consequently this version 
 should have been the means of establishing one of those 
 outward ceremonies against which the Genevan Reformers 
 set themselves so strongly. 
 
 103 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 last instance is specially important, in view 
 of the frequency with which in this great 
 Epistle the human name stands alone, and 
 sometimes as here with marked emphasis, 
 with reference to our Lord.^ 
 
 2. The Work of Christ. 
 
 When we pass from the Person to the 
 Work of Christ, the doctrinal consequences 
 attending certain improved renderings are 
 even more significant than those we have 
 already noticed. Thus it is the constant 
 practice of Scripture, and more particularly 
 of the Pauline Epistles, to regard the change 
 wrought in the believer in an ideal light. 
 The change from death to life, though 
 practically only gradually realized, is pre- 
 sented as ideally complete, " summed up," 
 as Bishop Lightfoot puts it, '' in one definite 
 act of the past ; potentially to all men in 
 our Lord's Passion and Resurrection, actually 
 to each individual man when he accepts 
 
 1 Cf. ch. ii. 9, vi. 20, vii. 22, x. 19, xii. 2, 24, xiii. 
 
 12. 
 
 104 
 
The Person and Work of Christ 
 
 Christ, is baptized into Christ." ^ And 
 by way of illustration he points to such 
 important doctrinal passages as Rom. vi. 2, 
 2 Cor. V. 14, and Col. iii. 3, where the 
 Revisers have translated the Greek aorists 
 as referring to a definite past time — " We 
 who died to sin, how shall we any longer 
 live therein ? " " For the love of Christ 
 constraineth us ; because we thus judge, 
 that one died for all, therefore all died." 
 *' For ye died, and your life is hid with 
 Christ in God." ^ 
 
 The extent of Christ's redeeming work, 
 as including potentially all mankind, to 
 mention another point, gains also new 
 witness from the Revised Version. Read 
 
 ^ On a Fresh Revision of the English Neiv Testament^ 
 3rd ed., London, 1891, p. 94. 
 
 2 It is a common criticism that the Revisers have 
 carried their renderings of the aorist as a dejinite past too 
 far, and it must be kept in view that our simple past tense 
 does not always coincide in meaning with the Greek 
 aorist, any more than our perfect tense always corresponds 
 with the Greek perfect ; see the important statement by 
 Moulton, Prolegomena to a Grammar of Neiv Testament 
 Greeks Edinburgh, 1908, p. 135 ff. 
 
 105 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 Rom. V. 15-19 as in the Authorized Version, 
 and the benefits of one man's obedience 
 would seem to be confined to " many " ; 
 but give the definite articles before " one " 
 and " many " their proper force, as in the 
 Revised Version, and then it v^ill be seen 
 " that the many^^ in an antithesis to the 
 one, are equivalent to all,^ in ver. 12, and 
 comprehend the v^hole multitude, the entire 
 species of mankind, exclusive only of the 
 oneP ^ The reason v^hy the term, " the 
 many," is used being, as Godet has well 
 pointed out, in order to establish this 
 contrast with the one : " all would be 
 opposed to some, and not to oneP " So then 
 as through one trespass the judgment came 
 unto all men to condemnation ; even so 
 through one act of righteousness the free 
 gift came unto all men to justification of 
 Hfe" (ver. 18). 
 
 1 ol TToXXot. ^ iravTcs. 
 
 3 Bentley, Works (ed. Dyce), iii. p. 244. The passage 
 will be found in Lightfoot, ut supra, p. 108, or, more fully, 
 in Trench, ut supra, p. 1 3 5 f» 
 
 106 
 
II 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 
 
 Life, life not in ourselves, but in Christ, 
 that is the promise of the Gospel ; and 
 short of " the hfe which is life indeed " 
 (i Tim. vi. 19), we cannot rest satisfied. 
 Death to sin, forgiveness however absolute 
 and complete, are at best but starting- 
 points. What a man longs after is restored 
 communion with God, that knowledge of 
 God which, as our Lord Himself teaches, 
 is of the very essence of the life eternal 
 (John xvii. 3). Atonement, if it is to be 
 truly deserving of the name, must issue in 
 at-one-ment. And it is perhaps because 
 this old EngHsh word has lost its original 
 meaning, as well as for consistency of 
 rendering, that the Revisers have removed 
 it from the only place in which it occurs in 
 our EngHsh Bibles, and that Rom. v. il 
 107 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 now reads : " But we also rejoice in God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ, through 
 whom we have now received the reconcilia- 
 tion." Reconciliation, indeed, the recon- 
 ciliation of God to man, and man to God, 
 is, as we learn elsewhere, the great message 
 entrusted to Christ's ambassadors (2 Cor. v. 
 18-20), and the man who accepts it is more 
 than pardoned ; there is " a new creation " 
 (2 Cor. V. 17 margin).^ 
 
 I. Life in Christ. 
 
 How beautifully, too, this our new state 
 is brought before us in the revised rendering 
 of Eph. ii. 13, " But now in Christ Jesus 
 ye that once were far off are made nigh in 
 the blood of Christ." Already in ch. i. 7 
 St. Paul has spoken of the blood of Christ 
 as the causa medians of our redemption — 
 " in whom we have our redemption through 
 His blood." Now he brings that blood 
 
 1 A different side of Christ's work appears in Heb. ii. 
 17, where another Greek word (tXao-Kco-^at) is now rightly 
 rendered " to make propitiation '* not ** reconciliation." 
 108 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 before us (and it must be kept in view that 
 in Scripture blood is always conceived of as 
 living, and that therefore by the blood of 
 Christ we must understand not His death, 
 but His life, won through death, in heaven) ^ 
 as the abiding condition or power "in" 
 which we draw near. 
 
 The truth is so important that it may be 
 well to illustrate it a little further. When, 
 for example, with our ordinary version we 
 are assured that " the gift of God is eternal 
 life, through Jesus Christ our Lord" 
 (Rom. vi. 23), we do not necessarily think of 
 more than that Christ has worked a work on 
 our behalf, which entitles us to share in 
 eternal Hfe. But when we find that the 
 real rendering of the word is, "the free 
 gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord," then we realize that this life, so far 
 from being an endowment apart from 
 Christ, can only be enjoyed in living union 
 with Him, and necessarily brings with^ it 
 all the accompaniments which such a union 
 
 1 Cf. W. Milligan, The Resurrection of Our Lord, 
 London, 1884, p. 290 fF. 
 
 109 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 involves. The believer is " persuaded in 
 (' by,' Authorized Version) the Lord Jesus " 
 (Rom. xiv. 14) ; he has " his glorying in 
 (' through,' Authorized Version) Christ 
 Jesus " (Rom. xv. 17) ; in everything he is 
 " enriched in (' by,' Authorized Version) 
 Him " (i Cor. i. 5). 
 
 The duty of Christian forgiveness again 
 is made by St. Paul to rest upon the fact 
 that " God also in Christ forgave you " 
 (Eph. iv. 32), instead of " for Christ's sake," 
 a familiar phrase that now^ w^hoUy disappears 
 from the Authorized Version. And the 
 same Apostle in one of the most personal 
 of his Epistles can make it his proud claim, 
 " I can do all things in Him (' through 
 Christ,' Authorized Version) that strength- 
 eneth me " (Phil. iv. 13), even as he conveys 
 a like assurance to his converts, " my God 
 shall fulfil (' supply,' Authorized Version) 
 every need of yours according to His riches 
 in glory in (* by,' Authorized Version) 
 Christ Jesus " (Phil. iv. 19). 
 
 Still other passages where the same pre- 
 position has now got its proper force, which 
 no 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 have a more or less doctrinal significance, 
 are Rom. v. 21, where the contrast between 
 " sin in death " and " grace unto eternal 
 life " is very instructive ; Col. i. 16, 17, 
 where the original creation of all things 
 " in " Christ, as their initial cause, is shown 
 to precede their coming into existence 
 " through " Him, the mediatorial Lord, 
 and their final return " unto " Him as their 
 end and goal ; and i Tim. iii. 16, where 
 " in glory " marks Christ's state before and 
 at Ascension, as well as after. 
 
 There are two Greek prepositions, both of 
 which are ordinarily translated " from," ^ 
 but to the second of which the stronger 
 meaning " out of " can also be assigned, as 
 the Revisers have recognized in at least two 
 important passages, though unfortunately 
 they have confined the emendation to the 
 margin. In John xii. 32 our Lord's claim 
 is not, " And I, if I be Hfted up from the 
 earth, will draw all men unto Me," words 
 which would naturally confine His saving 
 and attractive power to His death ; but, 
 
 ^ ttTTO, eK, 
 
 III 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 " And I, if I be lifted up out of the earth," 
 in which the thought of His resurrection 
 is also included. It is the living Lord, Who 
 has reached His own glory through suffering 
 and death, Who is to exercise a universal 
 sway, in strict conformity with the teaching 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews : " But we 
 behold Him who hath been made a little 
 lower than the angels, even Jesus, because 
 of the suffering of death crowned with glory 
 and honour, that by the grace of God He 
 should taste death for every man " (Heb. ii. 
 9). And similarly in the same Epistle the 
 real tenor of our Lord's prayers in the 
 Garden is represented as being, not that 
 He should be delivered " from " death, but 
 " out of " death, brought safely, that is, 
 through death into a new life : " Who in 
 the days of His flesh, having offered up 
 prayers and supplications with strong crying 
 and tears unto Him that was able to save 
 Him out of death, and having been heard 
 for His godly fear, though He was a Son, 
 yet learned obedience by the things which 
 He suffered " (Heb. v. 7, 8). 
 112 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 To return, however, to the great truth 
 of the life of the beHever in Christ, we may 
 still cite one or two fresh illustrations 
 which it receives in the Revised Version. 
 A familiar one occurs in our Lord's analogy 
 of the Vine and the branches, for, as we 
 now read, it is " apart from," and not 
 merely " without " Him, the central Vine, 
 that the branches " can do nothing " 
 (John XV. 5). Or, again, in St. Paul's 
 favourite figure of the Body and the mem- 
 bers, how much is gained by the substitution 
 of " made full " for " complete " in Col. ii. 
 10. " In Him," that is in Christ, so the 
 Apostle has just been declaring, " dwelleth 
 all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and," 
 he continues, " in Him ye are made full." 
 It is actually in Christ's own fulness, the 
 fulness just spoken of, that His people are 
 entitled to share. And, once more, it is 
 coming unto Him, " a living stone," that they 
 also, " as living stones," are built up a spiritual 
 house (i Pet. ii. 4, 5) — the substitution of 
 " lively " for " living " in the Authorized 
 Version quite obscuring the parallelism. 
 
 113 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 2. Sanctification. 
 
 The mention of building up, of a pro- 
 gressive growth in holiness, leads us to ask 
 next. What has the Revised Version to 
 teach us regarding the great doctrine of 
 sanctification ? 
 
 One thing certainly, constantly lost sight 
 of, is made clear, namely, that sanctification 
 is not so much a consequence of salvation 
 as an integral part of it. It is " in 
 sanctification " rather than " unto holiness " 
 that " God called us " (i Thess. iv. 7), or, 
 more fully, v^e are chosen " from the begin- 
 ning unto salvation in sanctification of the 
 Spirit and belief of the truth " (2 Thess. iii. 
 13). " In " the will of God, that is, which 
 Christ has perfectly fulfilled. Christians are 
 included, and therefore sanctified (see Heb. 
 X. 10, margin). 
 
 But this is far from saying that sanctifica- 
 tion on our part can be realized all at once. 
 The Christian beHever, though ideally 
 complete in Christ from the moment of 
 114 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 his living union with Him, still knows from 
 practical experience that it is only slowly 
 and gradually that he can hope to apprehend 
 the full privileges and duties of his new 
 condition. And hence it is that the early 
 converts of the Christian Church can be 
 described not as " saved," but as " being 
 saved " (Acts ii. 47),^ or that, writing to the 
 Corinthians, St. Paul can speak of the word 
 of the Cross as the power of God " unto 
 us which are being saved " (i Cor. i. 18).* 
 The use of the perfect tense in the revised 
 translation of Eph. ii. 5, " By grace have 
 ye been saved," and the description of the 
 new man as " being renewed " in Col. iii. 10, 
 point in the same direction. While the 
 ever-advancing goal towards which the 
 believer is to press comes out clearly in 
 St. Paul's prayer for his converts " that ye 
 
 2 Cf. 2 Cor. ii. 1 5 and the interesting gloss in Rom. 
 xiii. II," Now is salvation nearer to us than when we 
 ^rst believed (ore eTrio-rcvo-a/xcv)," where the Revisert 
 have inserted the word Jirst to emphasize the contrass 
 between full and final salvation, and the definite moment 
 in the past when belief first manifested itself. 
 
 "5 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 may be filled unto (* with,' Authorized 
 Version) all the fulness of God " (Eph. iii. 
 19), and in the words of the following 
 chapter, " till we all attain unto the unity 
 (' come in the unity,' Authorized Version) 
 of the faith, and of the knowledge of the 
 Son of God, unto a fullgrown (' perfect,' 
 Authorized Version) man, unto the measure 
 of the stature of the fulness of Christ " 
 (ch. iv. 13). 
 
 The word rendered *' fullgrown " in this 
 last verse is in itself very significant. Liter- 
 ally it means that which has reached the 
 goal, the end, of its existence. No single 
 word in English altogether expresses this. 
 " Fullgrown " is perhaps as literal a trans- 
 lation as possible, and is certainly better 
 than the Authorized " perfect," which is 
 apt to convey an erroneous impression. It 
 is unfortunate, therefore, that the Revisers 
 have not adopted it in i Cor. xiv. 20, 
 Phil. iii. 15, Col. i. 28, iv. 12, and James iii. 
 2, as well as here, and in i Cor. ii. 6 (margin) 
 and Heb. v. 14. 
 
 But however we describe the new life 
 116 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 to which believers attain in Christ, the 
 main point to be kept in view is that it 
 is a " new " Hfe, and not merely a reviving 
 or deepening of the old : " the old things 
 are passed away ; behold they (' all things/ 
 Authorized Version) are become new " 
 (2 Cor. V. 17). And the reason of this is 
 that its standard is derived from the heavenly 
 and Divine Jesus, so that " if we have 
 become united with Him by the like- 
 ness of His death, we shall be also by the 
 likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. vi. 5). 
 Hence it is that believers receive the right 
 to become " children," and not merely 
 "sons" of God (John i. 12),^ and that we 
 catch the full meaning of such a passage 
 as, " We all, with unveiled face reflect- 
 ing as a mirror the glory of the Lord, 
 are transformed into the same image from 
 glory to glory, even as from the Lord the 
 Spirit" (2 Cor. iii. 18). BeHevers, as they 
 steadfastly contemplate their Lord, gradually 
 
 1 TcKva points to community of nature as distinguished 
 from vloL, which might denote merely dignity of heirship. 
 Cf. Phil. ii. 15 ; i John iii. i, 2. 
 
 117 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 grow more and more like to Him : they are 
 not merely " followers," but " imitators " 
 of Christ (i Cor. xi. i ; Eph. v. i ; i Thess. 
 i. 6), and, in obedience to the working of an 
 irresistible law, " become partakers of the 
 divine nature " (2 Pet. i. 4). 
 
 Is it not a similar victory of " the Spirit " 
 in believers which underlies the amended 
 translation of Gal. v. 17 ? As we read 
 the verse in the Authorized Version, " For 
 the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the 
 spirit against the flesh : and these are 
 contrary the one to the other : so that ye 
 cannot do the things that ye would," St. 
 Paul would seem to be adding only another 
 to the many passages in which he reminds us 
 that, notwithstanding our best wishes and 
 intentions, sin is ever present with us. But 
 read the last words, as in the Revised Version, 
 " that ye may not do the things that ye 
 would," and we are introduced to the 
 comforting thought of a constraining power 
 within us which prevents us from doing 
 what we might otherwise incline to. The 
 victory now rests with the Spirit, and not 
 118 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 with the flesh. Or, as St. Paul states the 
 same truth elsewhere from another point 
 of view : " Him who knew no sin He (/.<?. 
 God) made to be sin on our behalf ; that 
 we might become the righteousness of God 
 in Him " (2 Cor. v. 21), where " become," 
 not " be made," as in the Authorized Version, 
 lays stress on the gradual but inevitable 
 transformation of those who are vitally 
 united to God in Christ. 
 
 Very striking, too, as bringing out the 
 natural evolution of the Christian graces, is 
 the amended version of 2 Pet. i. 5-7 : " In 
 your faith supply virtue ; and in your virtue 
 knowledge ; and in your knowledge tem- 
 perance . . ." and so on through the famihar 
 Hst, where the use of " in " in place of " to " 
 implies not merely a catalogue of the graces, 
 but their necessary dependence upon one 
 another. The last clause, " and in your 
 love of the brethren love," strange and 
 tautological though at first it sounds, has 
 been claimed as teaching no less a truth 
 than that " love, the feeling of man for 
 man as man, finds, and can only find, its 
 119 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 true foundation in the feeling of Christian 
 for Christian, realised in and through the 
 Incarnation of the Word." ^ 
 
 3. The Sacraments. 
 
 The doctrine of the Sacraments may 
 next engage our attention, and here again 
 the variations in the renderings of familiar 
 texts, though they may not appear at first 
 of great importance, involve far-reaching 
 truths. Thus Baptism is no longer repre- 
 sented as " in the Name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost " 
 (Matt, xxviii. 19), as if there were a kind 
 of sacred charm in the mere words, but it 
 is baptism " into the name . . .," as the 
 expression, that is, according to the common 
 Scriptural use of the word, of the whole 
 character of the Triune God, the sum of 
 the whole Christian revelation. The know- 
 ledge of God as Father, the spiritual birth- 
 right of Sonship, the power and advocacy 
 of the Holy Spirit — all these privileges 
 
 1 Bishop Westcott, Expository Times, iii. p. 396. 
 120 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 belong to those who in divinely-appointed 
 rite are incorporated into the Divine Name.^ 
 It is only right, however, to notice that the 
 old translation " in the name " is strongly 
 upheld by many modern scholars, who are 
 able to appeal to the frequency with which 
 the Greek preposition for " into " ^ is 
 used for the Greek preposition for " in " * 
 in late Greek. 
 
 In the case of the Lord's Supper, the 
 well-known description in i Cor. xi. sup- 
 plies us with an alteration which at once 
 arrests our attention. In ver. 27 the Re- 
 visers, following the best-supported Greek 
 text, substitute " or " for '' and " — " Where- 
 fore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink 
 the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be 
 guilty of the body and the blood of the 
 Lord." It is hardly necessary to say that 
 no support is thereby given to the Romish 
 
 1 Cf. Acts viii. 16, xix. 5. The translators of the 
 Authorized Version have given the preposition (ct?) its 
 full force in Rom. vi. 3 ; i Cor. x. 2, xii. 13 ; Gal. iii. 
 
 27. 
 
 ^ €tS. ' €V. 
 
 121 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 practice of administering the sacrament 
 to the laity only in one kind. Any such 
 inference lies wholly beyond the scope of 
 the words, and, as a matter of fact, is dis- 
 proved by various other statements in this 
 very chapter. But without pressing the 
 new reading unduly, we may at least notice 
 how it emphasizes the truth we are otherwise 
 prepared for, that the two parts of the 
 rite have distinct meanings. The Bread — 
 that is, the Body of Christ — recalls more 
 particularly His Incarnation, apart from 
 His sufferings ; for it is noteworthy that 
 our Lord says nothing over the Bread to 
 connect it directly with the thought of an 
 offering for sin ; ^ whereas the Cup — that 
 is, His Blood — is definitely associated with 
 His atoning work, " This cup is the new 
 covenant in My blood : this do, as often as 
 
 1 In I Cor. xi. 24 the word for "broken" ( kXw/xcvov ) 
 disappears according to the best reading. Similarly in 
 Luke xxii. 19 the words "which is given for you" are, 
 as we learn from the marginal note, of doubtful authority. 
 They may have formed, with the corresponding words in 
 ver. 20, part of an early tradition, which was afterwards 
 incorporated in the Evangelic text. 
 122 
 
The Christian Life 
 
 ye drink it, in remembrance of Me," or, 
 as the same truth appears still more clearly 
 in the account in the First Gospel, " And 
 He took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to 
 them, saying. Drink ye all of it ; for this 
 is My blood of the covenant, which is shed 
 for many unto remission of sins " (Matt, 
 xxvi. 27, 28). " We are not first purified 
 from our sins and then incorporated into 
 Christ. When we have been brought, just 
 as we are, into the communion of His Body, 
 then we are in a position to receive the 
 cleansing action of His once outpoured 
 Blood." 1 
 
 ^ Mason, The Faith of the Gospel^ London, 1888, 
 P- 305- 
 
 123 
 
Ill 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND FREE WILL 
 
 I. The Holy Spirit. 
 
 When we pass to passages in the Revised 
 Version bearing on the doctrine of the 
 Holy Spirit, we cannot but again join in 
 the widely-expressed regret that the Revisers 
 did not see their way to follow the example 
 of their American colleagues and adopt 
 the uniform rendering of " Spirit " for the 
 Greek word by which the Third Person of 
 the Trinity is described, instead of retaining 
 in numerous passages the archaic word 
 " Ghost." ^ For not only is the word now 
 meaningless, except in the sense of dis- 
 embodied spirit, but its use obscures the 
 vital relation between the spirit of man and 
 the Spirit of God. That yielding to the 
 1 Cf. p. 8i. 
 124 
 
The Holy Spirit and Free Will 
 
 demands of the context, the Revisers read 
 Spirit in certain passages — such as Luke 
 ii. 25-27, *' the Holy Spirit was upon 
 him ... it had been revealed unto him 
 by the Holy Spirit ... he came in the 
 Spirit," or iv. i, " Jesus, full of the Holy 
 Spirit . . . was led by the Spirit in the 
 wilderness during forty days, being tempted 
 of the devil," or i Cor. xii. 3, 4, " and no 
 man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy 
 Spirit. Now there are diversities of gifts, 
 but the same Spirit. And there are 
 diversities of ministrations, and the same 
 Lord " — only makes us wish the more that 
 it had been consistently maintained. 
 
 Similarly when we pass to the description 
 of the Spirit's work in our Lord's great 
 Farewell Discourse. Here again (John xiv. 
 16, 26, XV. 26, xvi. 7), contrary to expecta- 
 tion, the translation " Comforter " has 
 retained its place in the text ; but the 
 margin at least supplies us with the more 
 exact rendering " Advocate." For the 
 Greek word ^ is passive, not active, in force, 
 
 ^ irapaLKXrjTOS. 
 
 125 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 and denotes literally one who is summoned 
 to the side of an accused man to aid him 
 in his defence in a court of justice, rather 
 than one who simply consoles, or even 
 strengthens according to the original force 
 of " comforter." By the observance of 
 this, not only is the full range of the 
 Spirit's advocacy brought home to us, but 
 we are also reminded of the close connexion 
 between His work and the work of our 
 Lord. It is He " who Himself is our 
 Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
 righteous " (i John ii. i), who promises 
 that He will " pray the Father, and He shall 
 give you another Advocate, that He may be 
 with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth " 
 (John xiv. 1 6). 
 
 The personality of the Spirit gains, too, 
 new emphasis from the use of masculine 
 pronouns in Rom. viii. i6 and 26, " The 
 Spirit Himself beareth witness with our 
 spirit, that we are children of God . . . the 
 Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with 
 groanings which cannot be uttered " : while 
 the wide range of His influence is brought 
 126 
 
The Holy Spirit and Free Will 
 
 out by the omission of " unto him " from 
 the close of John iii. 34, " For He whom 
 God hath sent speaketh the words of God : 
 for He giveth not the Spirit by measure " ; 
 and His continual ministry is enforced by 
 the use of the present tense in i Thess. 
 iv. 8, " God who giveth His Holy Spirit 
 unto you." 
 
 As an example of a change so slight as 
 liable to pass unmarked, and yet full of 
 significance, we may point to the omission 
 of " of " before *' the Spirit " in John iii. 5, 
 " Except a man be born of water and the 
 Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God," whereby " water " and " the Spirit " 
 are shown to be, not two independent 
 mediating agencies, but essentially con- 
 nected.^ 
 
 2. Election and Free Will. 
 
 If a bias against Rome has been un- 
 necessarily urged against the Authorized 
 
 ^ Ellicott, Considerations on the Revision of the English 
 Testament, London, 1870, p. 75, note I. 
 
 127 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 rendering of I Cor. xi. 27 (p. 121 f.), there 
 seems equally little ground for asserting 
 an undue bias in favour of Calvinistic 
 doctrine in certain other passages, for in 
 most of the renderings so cited the Trans- 
 lators of 161 1 appear simply to have followed 
 older authorities.^ But, in any case, the 
 Revisers have been careful to remove all 
 ground of complaint. 
 
 Thus in Matt. xx. 23, " but to sit on my 
 right hand, and on my left hand, is not mine 
 to give, but it shall be given to them for 
 whom it is prepared of my father," the 
 clause " it shall he given " (which, as the 
 italics show, does not belong to the original, 
 but has found its way into the text through 
 the Genevan version to bring out the 
 sense) has now been softened down into 
 " it is for them for whom it hath been pre- 
 pared of my Father " ; in the margins of 
 Rom. iii. 25 and v. 12, the suggested alter- 
 native readings " foreordained " and " in 
 
 1 Reference may be made to an article by Archdeacon 
 Farrar on " Fidelity and Bias in Versions of the Bible " 
 in the Expositor, 2nd Ser., iii. p. 280 fF. 
 128 
 
The Holy Spirit and Free Will 
 
 whom " disappear ; in the very difficult 
 Heb. vi. 6, the words " if they shall fall away " 
 are now rendered " and then fell away " in 
 accordance with the tense of the Greek 
 verb,^ while the marginal " the while," 
 instead of " seeing they crucify to them- 
 selves the Son of God afresh," makes it clear 
 that it is only so long as men go on so 
 crucifying the Son of God that renewal is 
 impossible. 
 
 Or, to take one more example, it has 
 been thought that the translation of the 
 famous verse, Heb. x. 38, has been modified 
 in the interests of the doctrine of the final 
 perseverance of saints. Tindale translated 
 it : " But the just shall live by faith. And 
 if he withdraw himself, my soul shall have 
 no pleasure in him " — showing that the 
 person whose possible withdrawing is thought 
 of is " the just " of the first clause. But 
 the Genevan translators substituted " any " 
 for " he," drawing a distinction between 
 the two, and in this they were followed by 
 the Authorized, " but if any man draw 
 
 ^ Kol TrapaTTicrovras* 
 129 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 back, my soul shall have no pleasure in 
 him." ^ The older and more correct 
 rendering now reappears in the Revised : 
 
 " But my righteous one shall live by faith : 
 And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure 
 in him." 
 
 The freedom, indeed, of man's will and 
 the need of a definite exercise of it in the 
 realization of the offered blessings both 
 obtain fresh prominence in the Revised 
 Version. Thus in Matt, xviii. 3, the opening 
 verb, though passive in form,^ is properly 
 rendered actively, and the popular error of 
 men being mere passive instruments in 
 the hands of God thereby exploded : 
 " Except ye turn, and become as little 
 children, ye shall in no wise enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven." And, so again, 
 Peter's words in his sermon at Jerusalem 
 gain a new and unexpected force when we 
 read, " Repent ye therefore, and turn 
 
 ^ The italics any man, which now appear in our Bibles, 
 were first introduced in the 1638 edition of the Author- 
 ized Version. 
 
 130 
 
The Holy Spirit and Free Will 
 
 again, that your sins may be blotted out, 
 that so there may come seasons of refreshing 
 from the presence of the Lord" (Acts iii. 19).^ 
 Instead of the waiting to " be converted . . . 
 when the times of refreshing shall come," in 
 seasons, that is, of revival, we learn that 
 the actual coming of these seasons is de- 
 pendent on human effort, and the fulfil- 
 ment by men of the necessary conditions by 
 deliberately turning to God and obeying 
 His will. It was a lesson that Peter himself 
 had learned from the Lord : for the charge 
 to him was not, " when thou art con- 
 verted, strengthen thy brethren," but, 
 " do thou, when once thou hast turned 
 again, stablish thy brethren " (Luke xxii. 32). 
 In St. John's Gospel, again, its proper force 
 is given to the Greek verb for " will," ^ 
 which, as rendered in the Authorized Version, 
 seems often no more than the mark of the 
 future. " Wouldest thou " — that is, hast 
 thou the will, the desire to — " be made 
 whole ? " is the full force of Jesus' question 
 
 ^ i7riaTp&f/aT€ . . . ottws av lA,^<uo-t Kaipol dvaj^^cws. 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 to the impotent man at Bethesda.^ 
 To the Twelve at Capernaum He says, 
 " Would ye also go away ? " ^ And, more 
 pointedly still, " If any man will do his 
 will" becomes, "If any man willeth to do 
 his will, he shall know of the teaching, 
 whether it be of God, or whether I speak from 
 myself " : ^ " the force of the argument lies 
 in the moral harmony of the man's purpose 
 with the divine law so far as this law is 
 known or felt." * 
 
 In the same connexion the force of the 
 reflexive pronouns in John v. 42, " But I 
 know you, that ye have not the love of God 
 in yourselves"; ib, vi. 53, "Except ye eat 
 the flesh of the Son of man and drink His 
 blood, ye have not life in yourselves " ; and 
 ih. xvii. 19, " And for their sakes I sanctify 
 myself, that they themselves also may be 
 sanctified in truth," ought not to be missed, 
 as bringing out that the appropriation of the 
 life of Christ on the part of believers, " so 
 far from extinguishing their individuality, 
 
 1 John V. 6. 2 73^ yj, 5y^ 
 
 3 lb. vii. 17. * Westcott ad loc. 
 
 132 
 
The Holy Spirit and Free Will 
 
 responsibility, and freedom, . . . rather brings 
 these prominently forward as characteristics 
 especially distinguishing them." ^ 
 
 Regarded indeed together, all believers 
 form a single great abstract unity, which 
 God has given to Christ : " whatsoever 
 Thou hast given Him " — so our Lord Him- 
 self describes the company of the faithful 
 in His great Intercessory Prayer. And it 
 is only when the thought passes to the 
 individuals composing that company, on 
 whom in His turn the Son bestows His 
 gift, that the neuter-singular gives place to 
 the masculine-plural—'' to them he should 
 give eternal life." ^ 
 
 Therefore, too, it is that in Christ we 
 have not only " redemption " as a general 
 
 1 W. Milligan, The Jscens'wn and Heavenly Priesthood 
 of our Lord, London, 1892, p. 188. 
 
 2 John xvii. 2. With this may be compared the Pauline, 
 " For ye are all one man in Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 28), 
 ** not * one ' only in the abstract by the acknowledgment 
 of a real fellowship, . . . hut one man : . . . one by the 
 presence of a vital energy guided by one law, one will, 
 to one end" (Westcott, The Victory of the Cross, London, 
 1888, p. 41). 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 gift, according to the Authorized rendering, 
 but " our redemption," so the Revisers 
 translate, to bring out the force of the 
 definite article in the original, the redemp- 
 tion which meets our individual needs (Eph. 
 i. 7). And again, when the Lord comes, 
 " who will both bring to light the hidden 
 things of darkness, and make manifest the 
 counsels of the hearts," the promise is, " then 
 shall each man have his praise from God " 
 — a much more personal av^ard than, " then 
 shall every man have praise of God " (i Cor. 
 iv. S). 
 
 134 
 
IV 
 THE LAST THINGS 
 
 I. The Parousia. 
 
 The word " manifest " in the last-mentioned 
 passage introduces us to yet another line of 
 doctrinal truth, which the Revised Version 
 helps to make clear. Christ's coming or 
 " presence," as the margin of the Revised 
 Version more correctly renders the Greek 
 word,^ is represented by all the Apostolic 
 writers as far more than an appearing. 
 It is a manifestation, a showing forth of 
 Himself openly to the world as He actually 
 
 ^irapovo-ia; see Matt. xxiv. 3; i Cor. xv. 23; 
 I Thess. ii. 19, etc. It is perhaps unfortunate that in 
 these passages the Revisers did not boldly anglicize the 
 Greek word and translate by " Parousia.'* On the full 
 force of the term in the light of recent discovery see 
 G. Milligan, St, Paul's Epistles to the Thess alonians^ 
 London, 1908, pp. 145 fF. 
 
 135 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 is — Col. iii. 4, " When Christ, who is our Hfe, 
 shall be manifested, then shall ye also with 
 Him be manifested in glory " ; i Pet. v. 4, 
 " And when the chief Shepherd shall be 
 manifested, ye shall receive the crown of 
 glory that fadeth not away " ; i John ii. 28, 
 " And now, my little children, abide in Him ; 
 that, if He shall be manifested, we may have 
 boldness, and not be ashamed before Him 
 at His coming." And the result of such 
 manifestation is that men too shall be made 
 manifest — 2 Cor. v. 10, " For we must all 
 be made manifest before the judgement- 
 seat of Christ ; that each one may receive 
 the things done in the body, according to 
 what he hath done, whether it he good or 
 bad." All outward disguises by which 
 men have deceived themselves or the world 
 will be stripped from them. They will be 
 shown in their inmost being, and, conse- 
 quently on this showing, the appropriate 
 reward or punishment will immediately 
 and necessarily follow. Those whose life 
 has been " hid with Christ in God " shall 
 then " also with Him be manifested in 
 136 
 
The Last Things 
 
 glory " (Col. iii. 4) : and then too " shall 
 be revealed the lawless one, whom the 
 Lord Jesus . . . shall bring to nought by 
 the manifestation of His coming " (2 Thess. 
 ii. 8).^ How familiar indeed the thought of 
 this great Day was to the minds of the 
 early Christians, and how vividly its imagery 
 was conceived, is proved by the constant 
 use of the definite article with reference 
 to its accompaniments. It is with " the 
 clouds " that Christ comes (Rev. i. 7), and 
 by " the falling away " and the revealing 
 of " the man of sin," that that coming will 
 be preceded (2 Thess. ii. 3 ; cf. 2 John 7, 
 " This is the deceiver and the antichrist "). 
 Not merely into " outer darkness " but 
 into " the outer darkness " shall the un- 
 profitable be cast, where shall be " the 
 
 ^ We may here call attention to the emphasis laid on 
 the personality of the Devil in the Revised renderings of 
 Matt. V. 37 (cf. ver. 39), vi. 13 ; John xvii. 15 ; Eph. vi. 
 16; 2 Thess. iii. 3; i John v. 18, 19. The masculine 
 pronoun in Mark xiii. 14, "But when ye see the 
 abomination of desolation standing where he ought not 
 (to /SScAvy/xa rrjs cpTj/iwcrcws €(rTT]KOTa oirov ov Set)," 
 should also be noted. 
 
 137 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 weeping and gnashing of teeth " (Matt, 
 viii. 12 ; cf. ib. xiii. 42, 50, xxii. 13, xxiv. 51, 
 XXV. 30, Luke xiii. 28). It is again from 
 " the wrath," and not from " wrath " 
 generally, that Christ's people are saved 
 (Rom. V. 9), and " in the white robes " 
 that those who have come out of " the 
 great tribulation " are arrayed (Rev. vii. 
 13, 14). Nor is it only for " a city which 
 hath foundations " that they are encouraged 
 to look, but for " the city which hath 
 the foundations " (Heb. xi. 10) — those 
 glorious foundations which are so fully 
 described in the Revelation of St. John 
 (xxi. 14, 19, 20). 
 
 2. The Hereafter. 
 
 The bearing of the Revised Version upon 
 the Future State opens up too many 
 questions to be discussed in the closing 
 sentences of this book. But how significant 
 its bearing is, and how widely it may come 
 to modify the popular views of the Here- 
 after must be obvious to all who keep in 
 
 138 
 
The Last Things 
 
 view the following facts : (i) The words 
 " damnation," " damned," " damnable," 
 have wholly disappeared — " condemnation," 
 " judgement," and their cognates, taking 
 their place ; (2) " Hell," when referring 
 generally to the unseen world beyond the 
 grave, becomes " Hades " ; when punish- 
 ment, as a part of that state, is implied, it 
 is retained, but even then " Gehenna," the 
 literal meaning of the word in the original, 
 always finds a place in the margin ; and 
 (3) " everlasting," as applied alike to future 
 bliss or future woe, is replaced by " eternal," 
 a word which does not so much express endless 
 duration in time, as that which transcends 
 time, very much what we otherwise designate 
 " spiritual," or, if the element of time does 
 enter into it, it rather suggests a fixed period, 
 " age-long," or " through the ages." ^ 
 
 1 See these changes discussed from his own point of 
 view, but with great moderation of language in a paper by 
 Dr. Samuel Cox in The Expositor^ ist ser. iii. pp. 434 ff. 
 Some remarks by Professor A. Roberts on the same 
 subject will be found in The Expository Times, iii. 
 pp. 549 IF. 
 
Value of the Revised Version 
 
 There are many other points on which, 
 if space had permitted, I would gladly have 
 dealt, but enough I trust has been said to 
 show how true it is that " every scripture 
 inspired of God is also profitable for teach- 
 ing " (2 Tim. iii. 16, R.V.), and at least 
 to give a glimpse of the rich field of inquiry 
 that lies before the student in the careful 
 comparison of our Authorized and Revised 
 Versions. 
 
 140 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Additional Reading 
 
 The books on the Fourth Gospel are legion. 
 Most of them, however, deal with the 
 higher criticism of the Gospel or elucidate 
 the text, though many of these expound 
 the teaching with greater or less fulness. 
 Among them Bishop Westcott's Gospel 
 according to St. John (1882) is distinguished 
 by its spiritual insight and fine devotional 
 tone. Some of the best expositions of 
 the thought of the Gospel are to be found 
 in general books on New Testament 
 theology, of which the following are good 
 examples : Prof. Moffatt's Theology of the 
 Gospels (191 2) ; Prof. Du Bose, The Gospel 
 in the Gospels (1905) ; and Prof. Denney, 
 Jesus and the Gospel (1908). The following 
 three books may be specially mentioned : 
 141 
 
Appendix 
 
 by Bishop Westcott (new edit., London, 
 1905). A briefer sketch will be found in the 
 present writer's Guild text-book (London, 
 A. & C. Black), which contains a selected 
 Bibliography of other books dealing with 
 the subject. 
 
 The case for the need of the Revision 
 of the Authorized Version is admirably 
 stated by Archbishop Trench in his Essay 
 On the Authorized Version of the New 
 Testament (2nd edit., London, 1859), by 
 Bishop Ellicott in his Considerations on the 
 Revision of the English Version of the New 
 Testament (London, 1870), and by Bishop 
 Lightfoot, with more direct reference to 
 the original Greek, in his most suggestive 
 study On a Fresh Revision of the English 
 New Testament (3rd edit., London, 1891). 
 Bishop Ellicott, who acted as Chairman of 
 the New Testament Revision Committee, 
 has also given a most interesting account 
 of the Committee's proceedings in a small 
 volume entitled Addresses on the Revised 
 Version of Holy Scripture (London, 
 S.P.C.K., 1901). 
 
 142 
 
Appendix 
 
 The way in which the new renderings 
 can be made profitable for preaching is 
 well brought out in Dean Vaughan's volume 
 of sermons, Authorized or Revised ? (London, 
 1882). But, above all, for a proper appre- 
 hension of the importance of the Revisers' 
 work, no one should neglect Bishop West- 
 cott's ^ome Lessons of the Revised Version 
 of the New Testament (London, Hodder & 
 Stoughton, 1897), in which the significance 
 of the various changes introduced is traced 
 with all the writer's marvellous acquaint- 
 ance with the original Greek text, and deep 
 spiritual insight. 
 
 H3 
 
INDEX 
 
 A. INDEX OF PASSAGES 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Matt. ii. 4 ^o 
 
 „ Hi. I . . . 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 „ iii. 14 • • 
 
 „ V. I, 2 . . 
 
 
 
 76 
 65 
 
 „ V. 17 . • 
 
 
 
 86 
 
 » V. 37 . . 
 
 
 
 137 
 
 „ vi.9-13. . 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 „ vi. 19 . . 
 
 
 
 79 
 
 ,, vi. 25 . . 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 „ viii. 28, 32 . 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 ,, ix. 12 . . 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 „ X. 4 . • • 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 „ X. 10 . . 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 „ xii. 18 . 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 ,, xii. 44 • 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 „ xiii. 1-23 
 „ xiv. 8 . 
 
 
 
 *n^4 
 
 „ xiv. 24 . 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 „ XV. 27 . 
 „ xvu. 25 . 
 
 
 
 57,68 
 
 „ xviu. 3 . 
 
 
 
 . 128 
 
 „ XX. 23 . 
 „ xxi. 19 . 
 
 
 
 „ xxii. 8, 13 
 „ xxiii.35- 
 
 
 
 ! 68 
 
 „ xxiv. 3 . 
 
 
 
 . 135 
 
 „ XXV. 6 . 
 „ XXV. 27 . 
 
 
 
 . 71 
 
 . 55 
 
 „ xxvi. 7 . 
 
 
 
 . 79 
 
 „ XXVI. 27. 
 „ XXVI. 53 
 
 
 
 : "i 
 
 „ xxviii. 19 
 
 
 
 . "9 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mark i. 27 . . 
 
 
 . 70 
 
 „ »• 37 . • 
 
 
 • 75 
 
 „ ii. 18 . 
 
 
 . 76 
 
 „ vi. 25 . 
 
 
 . 64 
 
 ,, vii. 10-12 
 
 
 . 60 
 
 „ ix. 23 . 
 
 
 . 70 
 
 „ xi. 4 . . 
 
 
 . 72 
 
 ,, xiii. 14 • 
 
 
 . 137 
 
 „ xiv. 18 . 
 Luke i. 4 . . 
 
 
 . 80 
 . 81 
 
 „ i. 63 . . 
 
 
 . 80 
 
 „ ii. 12 . 
 
 
 . 73 
 
 „ ii- 25-27 
 
 
 • '?^ 
 
 „ iii. 23 . 
 
 
 . 64 
 
 „ iv. I . . 
 
 
 84, 125 
 
 „ iv. 9. . 
 
 
 • V- 
 
 „ iv. 20 . 
 
 
 . 81 
 
 „ vi. 17 . 
 
 
 . 65 
 
 :; vii. 38 . 
 
 
 . 80 
 
 „ xvi. I flF. 
 
 
 . 66 
 
 „ xviii. 9 . 
 
 
 . 67 
 
 „ xix. 13 . 
 
 
 : i§ 
 
 „ xxi. 19 . 
 
 
 „ xxii. 32 . 
 
 
 . »3i 
 
 ,, xxiv. 26 . 
 
 
 . 90 
 
 John i. 18 . . 
 
 
 . 100 
 
 „ iii. 5 . . 
 
 
 . 127 
 
 „ iii. 34 . 
 
 
 . 127 
 
 „ iv. 27. . 
 
 
 . 74 
 
 „ iv. 37 f. • 
 
 
 . 77 
 
 „ y.6 . . 
 
 
 . 132 
 
 ,, V. 39f- • 
 
 
 i 91 
 
 H5 
 
Index 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 John vi. 14 . . . . 87 1 
 
 „ vi. 18 . . 
 
 
 
 76 
 
 „ viii. 58 . . 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 „ xii. 13 . . 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 „ xii. 32 . . 
 
 
 
 III 
 
 „ xiii. 23-25 . 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 ,, xiv. 16 . . 
 
 
 
 126 
 
 „ XV. 2, 3. . 
 
 
 
 85 
 
 „ xvii. 3 . . 
 
 
 
 107 
 
 ,, xvii. 15 . 
 
 
 
 137 
 
 „ xvii. 19. . 
 
 
 
 133 
 
 „ xix. 35 . 
 
 
 
 78 
 
 Acts ii. 47 . . 
 
 
 
 115 
 
 „ iii. 13. . 
 
 
 
 87 
 
 „ m. 19. . 
 
 
 
 131 
 
 ,, viii. 16 . 
 
 
 
 121 
 
 „ xvii. 23 . 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 » xix. 33 . 
 
 
 
 64 
 
 „ XXI. 15 . 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 ,, xxviii. 13 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 Rom. i. 13. . 
 
 
 
 56 
 
 „ iii. 25 . 
 
 
 
 128 
 
 „ v. 9 . . 
 
 
 
 140 
 
 » V. 15-19 
 
 
 
 106 
 
 „ v. 21 . 
 
 
 
 III 
 
 „ vi. 2 . . 
 
 
 
 105 
 
 „ vi. 23 . 
 
 
 
 109 
 
 „ viii. 16, 26 
 
 
 
 126 
 
 „ xiii. II . 
 
 
 
 "5 
 
 I Cor. i. 5 . . 
 
 
 
 no 
 
 „ i. 18 . 
 
 
 
 . 115 
 
 „ IV. 4 . 
 
 
 
 . 58 
 
 „ xi. I . 
 
 
 
 . 118 
 
 „ xi. 25 . 
 
 
 57, 
 
 121 ff. 
 
 >, xii. 3, 4 
 
 
 
 . 125 
 
 „ XV. 23 . 
 
 
 
 • 135 
 
 2 Cor. iii. 18 . 
 
 
 
 . 117 
 
 „ iv. 5 . 
 
 
 
 • 99 
 
 „ V. 10 . 
 
 
 
 . 136 
 
 „ V. 14 . 
 
 
 
 . 105 
 
 „ V. 17-20 
 
 
 ic 
 
 >8, 117 
 
 2 Cor. V. 21 
 
 Gal. iii. 28 . 
 
 „ V. 17 . 
 
 Eph. ii. 5 . 
 
 „ ii- 13. 
 
 „ iii. 19 
 
 „ IV. 13 
 Phil. ii. 5-8 
 
 „ iv. 6 . 
 
 M iv. 13 
 Col. i. 16, 17 
 
 „ ii. 2 . 
 
 „ ii. 10 . 
 
 „ iii- 3 . 
 „ m. 4 . 
 ,, iii. 10. 
 
 1 Thess. ii. 19 
 
 ,, iv. 4 
 „ iv. 7 
 „ iv. 15 
 
 2 Thess. ii. 3 
 
 " }}: 7 
 >> iii. I 
 I Tim. iii. 16 
 ,, vi. 10 
 Heb. ii. 9 . 
 „ iv. 8 . 
 ,, v. 7, 8 
 „ vi. 6 . 
 „ X. 38. 
 ,, xi. 10 
 
 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5 
 
 ,, iii- 15 
 ,, V. 4 . 
 
 2 Pet. i. 5-7 
 I John ii. I 
 
 „ ii. 28 
 
 „ V. 18, 19 
 
 Rev. vii. 13, 14 
 
 „ xxi. 19, 20 
 
 146 
 
Ind 
 
 ex 
 
 B, INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Aorist, force of Greek, 104. 
 Atonement, 107. 
 Authorized Version, 29-36. 
 Bede, the venerable, 7, 18. 
 Bias in translation, 127 ff. 
 Bible, the Bishops', 27. 
 
 ,, the "Breeches," 26. 
 
 ,, Coverdale's, 21. 
 
 ,, Cranmer's, 24. 
 
 ,, the Genevan, 27. 
 
 ,, Matthew's, 23. 
 
 ,, Rheims and Douai, 29. 
 
 „ ** The Great," 23. 
 
 ,, Tindale's, 13-19. 
 Christ, Person of, 96-103. 
 
 ,, "Work of, 104-106. 
 Colloquialism, 53. 
 Definite Article, 71 ff., 137. 
 Devil, personality of, 137. 
 Eastern Manners and Customs, 
 
 79 ff. 
 Fidelity, 17. 
 Free-will, 127 ff. 
 
 Greek' vernacular, 5. 
 Hebrew MSB., 3. 
 Hereafter, the, I38f. 
 Jerome, 6. 
 
 Jesus, the human name, 103. 
 Learning, Revival of, 13. 
 Life in Christ, io8 ff. 
 Marginal references, 39. 
 Parousia, 58, 135-140. 
 Prayer, the Lord's, 11. 
 Printing, Invention of, 12. 
 Proper names, spelling of, 89. 
 Responsibility,individual, 133c 
 Revival, seasons of, 131. 
 Revised Version, 37-42. 
 Sacraments, i2off. 
 Sanctification, 114ft 
 Septuagint, the, 3. 
 Sower, Parable of the, 48-53, 
 Spirit, the Holy, 118, 124 ff. 
 Trench, Archbishop, 48, 88. 
 Vulgate, the, 6. 
 Wyclif. 8-1 1. 
 
THE 
 
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