Preservation: General to Specific

Virtually all of the statements of the doctrine of preservation I've read start from the specific: the Greek and Hebrew originals, the KJV, or perhaps even some other specific subject. However, I've become convinced that the doctrine of preservation must begin with the general doctrine of preservation, and then proceed to the specific.

First of all, let me state a general doctrine of preservation: The sovereign God, who created all things, also preserves all things which He ha created. The entire universe is held together only by His power (Nehemiah 9:6, Colossians 1:16-17). One of God's names is even “Preserver” (Job 7:20, Hebrew natsar, translated "shield" in 2 Samuel 22:3, translated often as "keeper").

Systematic theologies usually teach this doctrine, though not specifically on the preservation of Scripture. Here are some quotes.

“By preservation we mean that God, by a continuous agency, maintains in existence all the things which He has made, together with all their properties and powers. In preservation we have, therefore, the first manifestation of God’s sovereign rule.”
Henry Thiessen, Lectures on Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1949), 174.

“The providence of God means the continuing action of God in preserving his creation and guiding it toward his intended purposes."
Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 1998), 412.

“Providence is that continuous agency of God by which he makes all the events of the physical and moral universe fulfill the original design with which he created it.”
A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1907), 419.

“PRESERVATION. This form of divine activity is but the continuous working of God by which He maintains and consummates the objects of His creation. The doctrine of preservation answers the claim of deistic philosophy, and asserts that the sovereign decree of God will be perfected forever (cf. Neh. 9:6; Ps. 36:6; Col. 1:17, Heb. 1:2, 3).”
Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947), 25.

 

You may have noticed that I have statements both on preservation and on providence in the OP. They go together very well. God usually preserves HIs creation by providence. (There are exceptions.) This is extremely important in the doctrine of preservation.

God works in His creation in two ways. When God does a miracle, it is an immediate act of God reaching down into His space-time creation to act against nature. Note that a miracle does not take time to get going, but begins instantaneously. Now, once the miracle is begun, it may continue for awhile, such as when God parted the Red Sea. The sea had to stay parted while the children of Israel went through. However, it is clear that the original parting was an instantaneous act.

Providence, on the other hand, takes time. In providence, God uses human means to work things together. For example, God providentially put Joseph as the head of all Egypt, not using miracles. Thus, Joseph could say, "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive" (Gen. 50:20).

The clearest statement of God's providence in the NT may be one of your favorite verses, Rom. 8:28, " And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

Now do not think that miracles are greater than providence, or vice versa. They are equal in importance. (Be patient. I'll get to the preservation of Scripture soon.)

 

Now, God preserves many things that He has made, but what has the most detail in the Scriptures is how He preserves His saints.

"For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off" (Ps. 37:28).

"He that keepeth thee will not slumber" (Ps. 121:3b).

So, for His saints, God will preserve:
1. their lives (Gen. 45:5, Deut. 6:24, Ps. 30:3, 33:19-20)
2. them from trouble and evil (1 Chron. 4:10, Ps. 32:7, 121:7, John 17:15, 2 Thess. 3:3)
3. them from evil men (Ps. 31:20, 41:2, 97:10, 140:1, 141:9)
4. their path (Gen. 28:15-22, Ex. 23:20, Josh. 24:17, 2 Sam. 8:6, Ps. 91:10, 121:8, Prov. 2:8)
5. the fatherless and widows and foreigners (Jer. 49:11, Ps. 146:9)
6. their spirit, soul and body for Heaven--eternal security (John 17:11-12, 1 Thess. 5:23, 2 Tim. 1:12, 1 Peter 1:5, Jude 1)
7. them from sin, according to their prayers (1 Sam. 25:39, Ps. 19:13, 141:3, Jude 24)
8. them from Satan (John 17:15)
9. them from temptation (1 Cor. 10:13, Rev. 3:10)

 

Notice that the ways God preserves His saints are normally providential, but they can be miraculous. For example, God can miraculously heal a person in answer to prayer in an instant. Miracles are that way--they start in an instant of time.

However, usually the healing is providential. I can give an example from my own life. Two years ago on Christmas Eve, my wife took me to the emergency room of our local hospital with an attack of diverticulitis. My intestines had burst, causing intense pain, and I was on the verge of death.

Here's the preservation by providence event. At the very time we went to the emergency room, a surgical team was finishing up another surgery, and would be right there, prepared to do emergency surgery on me! That's God in action, folks, though it was not a miracle. They operated on me, took out 15 inches of my innards, and saved my life for whatever service for Him I have left.

I was in the hospital a few days when I felt pain in a certain area of my stomach. They took X-rays and an MRI, but could find nothing. I persisted in saying there was pain there in that particular spot, so they finally did an ultrasound, and found blood clots. Again, I could have died if they had given up and not done the ultrasound! I was in the hospital for almost three weeks, and then 6 months later had follow-up surgery. God preserved me providentially.

God is the Preserver. Through His providence He preserves His saints, and whatever else of His creation that it is His will to preserve.

 

I'm going to post one more foundational thread, and then, don't worry, I'll get into Scripture preservation when I'm ready to.

Note concerning the term "saints," that is the term used by Paul for believers rather than "disciples," from the Gospels and Acts. A disciple may or may not be a true believer (remember Judas), but saint is a genuine Christian in Paul's thinking. Other than His saints, what does God preserve? (Feel free to add some, but please find them in the Bible, not logic.)

1. Israel (Joshua 24:17, Jeremiah 31:10)
2. Jerusalem (Isaiah 31:5)
3. The animal kingdom (Psalms 36:6, Matthew 10:29)
4. His ordained governments (2 Chronicles 6:16, Colossians 1:16-17, Romans 13:1)
5. His own secrets (Matthew 13:35, Romans 16:25)
6. The heavens and the earth (2 Peter 3:7)
7. His own Word, the Bible (Matthew 4:4, etc.)

 

Haven't been able to post here today, but I have a few minutes.

There are other places in theology where we go from general to specific. For example, the phrase "will of God" is a general statement meaning what God wants for an individual. However, there are specific statements of the will of God in Scripture also, such as 1 Thess. 4:3, "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication."

So stating a general truth such as "God preserves His creation" is a great starting point for discussing the preservation of Scripture. Since God preserves His creation, we must ask things like:

1. In what way does God preserve His creation, the Bible?
2. Sin brought decay into the universe, which is God's creation. Does God allow His Word to decay? In what way?

I'll get to these questions tomorrow, hopefully. But I will say this. It is important to note that God's original creation of the world, and particularly the Garden of Eden, was perfect. So there is an obvious conclusion from this about how God gave His Word.

 

Now, to continue with the general doctrine of preservation on to the Bible, think about how the Bible itself treats the preservation of Scripture. First of all, the Bible is perfectly preserved in Heaven: "For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven" (Ps. 119:89). I know of two places in the Bible where God perfectly replaced destroyed a Bible book or portion.

1. After Moses destroyed the Decalogue (Exod. 32:19), God was able to replace every word through Moses (Exod. ch. 34).

2. When the only earthly copy of a portion of God's Word was destroyed by evil king Jehoiakim (Jer. 36:23), God was able to give every word back to Jeremiah perfectly (Jer. 36:27-32).

 

However, the truth is that God leaves much of the preservation of Scripture to His people. The human preservation of Scripture is much more common in the Bible than supernatural preservation. Here are some ways in the Bible when people preserved the Scriptures.

1. God commanded the Jews to bind God's law on their hands and on their foreheads (Ex. 13:9, Deut. 6:8 & 11:8, Prov. 3:3, 6:2, 7:3).

2. Each king of Israel was required to write out his own copy of the Bible. "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites" (Deut. 17:18). Not only was he to have his own copy of the law, he was to live and rule by it (v. 19).

3. Moses cared enough about the Decalogue to make a box of shittim wood in which to preserve it (Deut. 10:3-5).

4. The ark of God was called variously "the ark of the testimony" (Josh. 4:16) and "the ark of the covenant" (Josh. 4:18), obviously referring to the fact that God's Word was to be kept inside it (Deut. 31:26).

5. God commanded the Jews to build an altar and write the law on the stones of it when they crossed the river into the Promised Land (Deut. 27:1-8). Joshua obeyed God's command and did so (Josh. 8:30-35).

6. We are to hide God's word in our heart (Ps. 119:11).

7. The Apostle Paul specifically asked Timothy to bring his personal copy of some of the Old Testament Scriptures (2 Tim. 4:13).

 

Pardon me for being slow to post on this thread. I'm thinking it all through. Next week I should be able to post much more.

Now, think about God's creation. There is something in science called the 2nd law of thermodynamics, according to which everything loses energy and becomes less perfect. It's easy to see that this happened when the curse of sin entered the world.

Now, this is true about humans also. We get old, we get wrinkled, our bones start to ache. Oh, wait, I'm describing myself! I just turned 70, and certainly do feel it at times.

So, when humans get ahold of God's perfect creation they always diminish it. Yet God still preserves it, keeping the human failures from messing up the important parts of His creation.

 

Hi, Dr. Bob. Good to have you back. I had every intention of continuing this thread, but caught Covid (much better now). I'll work on your point about the dual aspects of the preservation of the words of the original.

Maybe you could elaborate on what you mean by the "dual aspects" of the preservation of the words. God certainly preserves every single word of Scripture in Heaven, and I believe that every single word of Scripture is preserved in the mss on earth, and of course the task of discovering those words is the task of the textual critic.

 

The obvious deduction from my Post #10 is that a perfect translation cannot be produced by imperfect men, even if they are practicing the human preservation of God's Word, as I believe the Scriptures teach us to do.

Bible translation is a process, making it part of the providence of God. Look at Post #1 again where the word "continuous" is used. Providence is a process which includes events, but it is not an event in and of itself.

Translating the NT into Japanese, over and over I saw God's providence:
1. in getting me involved with a failed effort, so that I began to think about it.
2. when I found some books on Bible translation at a second hand sale.
3. When God led my Japanese translation partner, the incomparable "Uncle Miya" Miyakawa to join the effort.

Now let me tell you, Bible translation is hard work. The whole process (3 or 4 drafts, comments from others, Japanese proofreaders going through it at least 4 times, etc.), took 20 years or so. Never did I see a direct miracle that might make our translation perfect. Preservation/providence does not work that way.

 

So then, consider the act of proofreading after a translation is compete. The Japanese Shinkaiyaku version was proofread 8 times! No miracles there.

We have already had our Japanese version proofread 5 or 6 times, but the other day one of my team wrote informing me of a type he found in Romans 5. Oh, ouch. I guess our version is not perfect, because that would take a miracle. But God's providence has been at work to produce the best NT we can produce.

So then, if you believe in a perfect, inerrant version of the Bible, how did it get that way? Was there some kind of a miracle to make the translation perfect? Was it proofread? Then there was no miracle. And if it needed proofreading, the version is not perfect, because it was not given by a miracle. Man's imperfect hand was on it.

 

I would not call a normal translation a commentary, since a commentary comments on the Scriptures themselves, often without any reference to the original languages but only referring to a translation. So if a translation is a commentary, we then have a commentary analyzing a commentary.

Having said that, paraphrases are commentaries of a sort.

Very true. You can find out a lot from the preface of a translation.

 

So let's consider the providence of God in a Bible translation effort.

1. God will enlist the translators and prepare them. God gave me a love for languages, especially Japanese. I went to the leading Japanese language school in Japan. God led the board at a Bible school in Japan to ask me to teach Greek, and then tell me to get some more seminary Greek on furlough. Plus, my Hebrew prof in seminary was a leading scholar.

2. God will guide in the skopoi (goals) of the translation, and the methodology to be used. This may be completely indirect, and thus totally providential and not at all obvious.

3. God will guide further people to the effort when needed. Towards the end of our project, three great proofreaders came to us, two Japanese young ladies and a Japanese NASA scientist.

4. God will provide someone skilled in editing and computers who can format the project for printing. We have a great friend and missionary doing that. I didn't go looking for him--he just kind of fitted in!

4. God will provide a printer at the right time.

 

I think so, but it would be according to God's providence, not miraculous. In other words, yes, the original words are preserved in the manuscripts, but they must be found humanly researched and found. Therefore, I believe godly textual critics are necessary, and are helped providentially in their task. I thank God for such Christians.

Having said that, a perfect original text could not happen without a miracle. Perfection is by definition a miraculous event.