WE have seen how important it is that we should endeavor to get at the true text of "Our Father's Will," or, in other words, of "the word of God," though our present inquiry will only embrace the New Testament, and we have briefly glanced at the difficulties which have stood in the way.
Many have supposed that to procure a Greek Testament was to procure a copy of the true text as God caused it to be written; but, of course, a printed copy must have been made from some other copy; and it may have been copied from some one manuscript, or it may be a copy of what some editor (who has compared many manuscripts) judges to be the true text. Thus we are led back to the manuscript copies, and, as we have said, there are many of these, and no two of them are exactly alike.
This at first sight may seem to be a great calamity, throwing a doubt upon the blessed word of God, but on a closer investigation this will be seen not to be so. Of course, God could have preserved for us a faultless manuscript, but He has allowed it to be otherwise; the New Testament has gone through the various perils that any other old writing has been subject to, though with this difference, that it has been watched over by its living Author. God, of course, could by a continued miracle have preserved to us the very copies that were written by the inspired penmen; but He has not done so. Who could have held them, and what would other Christians have done without them? As it is, all, scattered over the known world, had copies of the original from the first.
Besides, the New Testament has now the indisputable stamp of antiquity upon it. It is known, apart from the manuscripts of the New Testament, that, say, in the fourth century Greek was written in a particular manner, and it is known that various changes gradually took place in writing that language, (points, accents, and breathings being introduced,) until the same passage written in the fourth century, and written in the tenth century, do not look like the same language. Well, we have portions of the Greek New Testament, believed to have been written in the fourth century, and then each century after, with those very changes introduced as they are known to have been made. To those who value external evidences, there cannot be a stronger proof that the New Testament was written soon after the time of our Lord; indeed, the evidence is so strong, that we are not aware that it has ever been called in question, even by the most skeptical.
And, further, as one has said, "It is a good providence and a great blessing that so many manuscripts of the New Testament are still amongst us; some procured from Egypt, others from Asia, others from the Western churches. For the very distance of places, as well as numbers of the books, demonstrate that there could be no collusion, no altering, nor interpolating one copy by another, nor all by any of them.”
It is important, too, to see that the variations in the manuscripts affect none of the great doctrines of Christianity. The divinity of Christ, His spotless life, His atoning death, His resurrection and ascension, all remain untouched. The fall of man, the glad tidings of salvation, the eternal security of the believer, and the eternal punishment of the unbeliever, all remain intact. The descent of the Holy Spirit, and the second advent of our Lord, remain unshaken. Indeed, as the same writer has said, "even put them [the various manuscripts] into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor so disguise Christianity, but that every feature of it will still be the same.”
Yet there is the fact (and it must be remembered that by speaking of it we do not create it-it is the same, whether we know it or not) that there are hundreds of Greek copies, and no two of them are exactly alike. Any one complete copy would give us all we need for salvation; but, as we have said, because the New Testament is from God, we want to know every word. All He does, He does perfectly. He caused the book to be written, and the right words to be used; and surely it is a laudable desire for us to seek to have the very words He caused to be written.
Such is our desire, and such was the desire of certain zealous men who have spent many a long year in poring over old manuscripts, using various, means to bring to light what, in many cases, had become invisible to ordinary eyesight. They are called EDITORS. Let due honor be given to those who have devoted the best part of their lifetime to these arduous duties.
We cannot do what they have done; and if we had all the materials at hand, not one in a thousand, is qualified to duly weigh all the evidence for and against a reading, giving to each its proper weight. But God bestowed gifts suited for such a work on one here, and another there; and they have labored diligently, and have told us what they believe are the words which God caused to be written.