Hi Jerry,

Thanks for your comment.

I can’t quibble with anything you have said in this post. I want to make it clear that I am not arguing with what you say here at all.

I am arguing with using Mt 4.4 (and Dt 8.3) as a promise of availability and of preservation. It is possible that there are some passages that do so, but I have yet to see them cited by my KJO friends. Instead, to prove this doctrine, they cite passages like Mt 4.4 and the others I ran through in the initial proof. None of them really say what they want them to say.

So to sum up, my argument here is that if you are going to use Scripture to support your position, please use it accurately. You actually only lose credibility for your position if you try to force the passages beyond their actual meaning.

I think there are legitimate arguments for the KJO position. The problem I have with it is that the arguments are based on faulty assumptions (my opinion). There are certain things we don’t know, and can’t know, about the early manuscripts. I think we should have the charity to recognize that the Lord has not seen fit to give us a definitive Scriptural basis for answering the questions and thus be willing to fellowship regardless of our conclusions concerning versions and texts.

FWIW!

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

The Greek word for “word” used here is “rhema”, which means a particular saying (or portion of God’s Word), rather than the word “logos”, which is typically used to refer to the whole word of God.

Spiritually, we overcome the Devil (and the world, our flesh, doubts, etc.) by quoting those portions of Scripture that are directly relevant to the temptation we are facing at a particular time. This is the same word used in the verse below:

Ephesians 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

We use particular portions of the Word of God as a weapon to fight our spiritual battles. When faced with doubts about our salvation (for example), we must remember and use those passages that deal specifically with that issue (such as 1 John 5:13; John 3:16, and related passages). It would do no good to quote Genesis 1:1 at that point in time. Another example, if we are struggling with doubts about having our daily needs met in our walk with the Lord, then it is beneficial to remember passages such as Matthew 6 (especially verse 33), Philippians 4:19, Malachi 3:8-10, etc.

In order for me to be victorious and live day to day in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord, I need to study and use the Word of God – both the whole Word (logos – that is quick and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword) and particular portions (rhema) of it. That certainly implies availability of the written Word of God.

P.S. It doesn’t make sense to me for man to live by unwritten/uninspired words of God – as they are not available nor promised to us (also, is there anywhere that God refers to unwritten/unrecorded instructions as His Word?).

Hi Todd

Thank you for your comment. Our discussion has pretty well died out, but I think that verse would support my contention that God isn’t under obligation to make his words available at all times.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.”

for His glory,
Christian Markle

Hi Kent.

I am happy to leave it there.

I include the BibSac quote more for the points he makes about context rather than necessarily endorsing all his conclusions, although I am not sure that he is off on his conclusion. His term “God’s view of reality” is a little odd, I’ll admit. God’s view is reality.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

You can tell me if I’m wrong, but we seem to be coming to the end of our discussion on Mt 4:4 for awhile. And I would understand if you didn’t want to take it all the way through every “availability” text I believe. I wouldn’t necessarily say that Mt 4:4 is the best availability text. I think it is good, but I think there are many other places that teach it. Christian has referred to some other good ones. Availability does strike a stake through the heart of the critical text and eclecticism, however, which is why I believe it is argued so heavily against by critical text guys. If those texts were taken at face value with no other motive, they would be read as saying all God’s Words are available. I’ve read numbers of messages by people saying that they teach availability when the preservation issue wasn’t in view.

OK, I want to keep my comments to things somewhat new and not retread old material, already stated. I want to start with the bibsac quote. Is that your position, Don? Because I don’t see—“that is, by God’s interpretation of reality, as opposed to that of Satan”—at all. Words = God’s interpretation of reality. That seems to be a stretch. Why? I believe it would have been stated in a different way if it wasn’t referring to actual words. I don’t think it is your position though. You just quoted a guy that disagreed with me.

Regarding the LXX thing. As you know, I don’t believe that Jesus quoted from the LXX. If he did, the LXX people have a problem too. I’ve dealt with that many times though elsewhere, so I won’t repeat it here. That is a huge subject though. I understand the point that is made though, that is, that Jesus quoted from a corrupt translation, justifying the use of a corrupt translation.

Don, I don’t think you and I are actually that far off, and I’m not saying that to stay in good with you. I figure I’m still in good. We both say that Jesus lived by Words of God, actual Words. I think we are both saying that.

And I believe this will dovetail with Christian’s criticism. He says that I paint myself in the corner. I explained how I don’t. And this also shows how that my syllogism is OK. By the way, I didn’t say my syllogism came from the one verse. It comes from the truths in Deut 8 and really all the rest of scripture. As long as it all fits into scripture, I believe, it fits.

Moses said what he said to Israel. Jesus said what He said to Satan. What’s the point? We will live by God’s Words, not just by eating manna or bread. The children of Israel ate manna and didn’t survive. They went wrong in that they didn’t obey God’s Words. Life for Jesus was less concerned with eating bread to satisfy hunger than it was to obey the Words spoken to Him by the Father. Jesus always obeyed the Father’s will. Jesus obeyed every one of the Father’s Words.

This is where it’s at guys. These words apply to us. They applied to Israel. What words are we responsible to keep, to live by? We are required to live by every one of them. Which ones are those? Those are the ones God inspired. That’s how that text applies to us. It is saying that we too live by every Word. Every Word to us is not the same as every Word to Jesus. We don’t get non-inspired Words, however. So we must depend on the inspired ones, which this verse assumes or implies that we will have. I believe it is clear.

Hi Kent

I am going to give a response to your latest post in more detail. I’ll try to quote the relavent portions of your post and then give my response below.

“Don is taking, I believe, the position that Jesus is obeying unrecorded, therefore unavailable, Words.”

That isn’t exactly what I am saying. Jesus may not even have had any specific word at all, other than “Go to the wilderness until I send for you.” We don’t know what specific words (if any) that the Spirit used to drive Jesus into the wilderness. What we do know is that the Spirit did drive Jesus into the wilderness and that he was completely walking by faith in the Father’s direction both by direct communication and Spirit leading.

I am also saying that Jesus isn’t necessarily referring to any specific words when he quotes Moses. He is quoting Moses as an authority whom he is depending upon to trust the Father in the wilderness testing. He is showing by divine authority why he need not yield to the temptation to pursue his own agenda rather than the Father’s.

BTW, have you ever noticed that Jesus uses the future tense, ‘shall live’, rather than exactly quoting the Hebrew Qal imperfect? He is following the LXX here. My understanding from my Hebrew grammars is that the Qal imperfect is more or less similar to our present tense. The NET Bible notes say that the future in Mt 4.4 can be either “taken as a command (also known as an imperatival future) or as a statement of reality (predictive future)”. I’m not sure if that’s significant, I am not that good in Hebrew. But there is clearly a difference. (And… “things that are different are not the same” … sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

I still have a problem with this part of your last post:

Major Premise: God’s own must obey the Words He expects them to obey in order to live.

Minor Premise: God expects His own to obey every one of His Words in order to live.

Conclusion: His own have every one of His Words.

Man cannot obey Words He does not have. God is a good God and just. He wants men to live. He will not leave unavailable Words that He expects men to obey in order to live. He expects men to obey every Word. Since the completion of Scripture, those Words have been all the Words inspired in every Book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. God does not expect us, so neither are we responsible, in order to live, to obey Words that He said that are not in Genesis to Revelation (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Alright Don, you can start looking for the holes again.

Let’s just lay up the actual passage here by way of comparison…

Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Your whole syllogism isn’t anywhere close to what the verse is saying. I find it quite amazing.

BTW, with respect to logic and post-enlightenment rationalism and all… I find it ironic that you are touting logic as if it is opposed to rationalism. To quote Spock, “That is not logical, Dr. McCoy.”

I’ll close this comment with a quote from BibSac, Jul-Sep 1994:

The impact of Satan’s temptation is that Jesus, like Adam first and Israel later, had a justifiable grievance against God and therefore ought to voice His complaint by “murmuring” (Exod 16; Num 11) and ought to provide for Himself the basic necessity of life, namely, bread. Satan, in other words, sought to make Jesus groundlessly anxious about His physical needs and thus to provoke Him to demand the food He craved (cf. Ps 78:18). In short, the devil’s aim was to persuade Jesus to repeat the apostasy of Adam and Israel. Satan wanted to break Jesus’ perfect trust in His Father’s good care and thereby to alter the course of salvation-history.

Jesus rejoined with the words of Deuteronomy 8:3b, “Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” The context of 8:1–10 must be taken into account, particularly verse 2 , which, as related earlier, includes the three elements underlying the temptation narratives as a whole: the number 40, the wilderness, and testing. In addition, verse 3a mentions hunger, and verse 5 refers to Israel’s sonship. In His own Person, then, Jesus recapitulated Israel. He remembered all the way Yahweh had led (v. 2 ) and that He had provided all His people’s needs as indisputable proof of His care (v. 4 ). Jesus was thus content to live by “every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God,” that is, by God’s interpretation of reality, as opposed to that of Satan (Matt 4:4). ((Don B. Garlington, “Jesus, the Unique Son of God: Tested and Faithful” Bibliotheca Sacra (Dallas Theological Seminary, 1994; 2002) Volume 151:297-298.))

That’s all for now.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

As we talk more, I see more of what the issue is. I think it is a slightly different issue for both of you.

. . .

I don’t think that, Don and Christian, you are taking the same position. Don is taking, I believe, the position that Jesus is obeying unrecorded, therefore unavailable, Words. Christian is saying that Jesus is getting His sustenance to live by unrecorded Words that God has said. You tell me if I’m wrong.

Yes, I believe you are correct. Brother Johnson and I are not necessarily allies who are in agreement with each other on the meaning of this text. We just happen to both disagree with you. Sorry to be ganging up on you :), but I believe we are all “truth seekers”. . . willing to go wherever the text takes us not just seeking to defend a position. {I realize that I may have to swallow those words some day :-)}

, I could just defer to your position and move on. The problem is that I still believe that Matthew 4:4 implies preservation and availability.

And I could possibly just defer to your position and move on, but the concern I have is that we must be careful not to import our ideas into a text and force it to fit even if the truth we are seeking to defend is verified elsewhere.

However, for you Christian, I took that from your statement that you believe the Words are in the Byzantine manuscripts, which is essentially the majority text position. It is not a pre-enlightenment position based on historic and biblical presuppositions. That’s a long discussion, however, so I apologize in that I should have left that can of worms closed.

You are most certainly forgiven for opening “the can of worms”! Someday I may “enlighten” you as to why I am only willing to narrow preservation to the Byzantine family. BTW I purposefully avoid using phrase “Majority Text family” because I think it obscures the reasons for my position. HINT: Its not because “more is better”.

I believe that we should look at the context, which Christian says is not significant in the argument.

I should clarify my thoughts about the context of Deuteronomy 8:3. I would suggest that the context of a phrase includes the very verse where the phrase is found. Yeah, I would assert that the most immediate context of the phrase (ie verse where the phrase is found) is much more important than looking two verses before the verse. I may have missed Brother Brandenburg’s explanation of the whole verse (vs 3), but for me the context of the phrase holds priority over the context of the verse/chapter. Furthermore, the semantic range of the word “live” is flexible enough to be used in 2 distinctly different ways within a small context. I offer Deuteronomy 5:26 and 33 as an example.

Let me add something else that relates to the incarnation of Christ. How did Christ live for forty days without food in the wilderness? This is a human impossibility.

Impossible? Really what about Exodus 34:28? How did Moses do it? I would suggest that God sustained him — which seems to make my point.

As far as number one is concerned, I would have seemed to have defeated my point, because the Words that Jesus obeyed were not recorded. The Father told those to Him perhaps in a private conversation either in prayer or during His time in the wilderness alone. I have no problem with that. However, we cannot depend on unrecorded Words to live.

It does appears you have in fact defeated your point. You have practically admitted that Christ was acting on words that are not within the canon (written). If one takes your position, then Christ was speaking of obedience to the words of God the Father that are not recorded in Scripture. These words, the very words Christ was speaking about, are not only not revelation and therefore not preserved but they are not available to us. This means this passage cannot be used to support your thesis–the universal availability of all the words of revelation; for Jesus was not talking about words of revelation, he apparently was talking specifically about unrecorded words. To use this passage as support for your thesis and then claim that we cannot depend on unrecorded words seems to ignore that was apparently what Jesus was talking about — unrecorded (and thereby unavailable to us) words by which he was living (whether by obedience or dependence).

So when Jesus quoted that, yes, they were unrecorded Words to Him, but they are always recorded ones for us. Therefore, the ones available to us are recorded ones.

My dear brother, you appear to have painted yourself into a very difficult corner. Which I will allow you to attempt to unravel. I will leave you with only one question.

Does man live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God or does he live only by the written words of God? The text seems clear, but your explanation of the text seems to miss this.

For His glory,
Christian Markle