Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faith Forward Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
Recently, I heard some Ruckmanites criticizing the term immediate inspiration,
or the fact that the Bible was immediately inspired in Greek and Hebrew.
And it was obvious that they didn't understand what that term meant.
And in this video, I'm going to explain what that term means and explain why they are 100% wrong.
Now, first of all, the Bible is inspired by God.
It says in 2 Timothy 3.16,
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
Another really clear verse is where the Bible says,
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
And there are all kinds of places in the New Testament where it quotes the Old Testament and says,
Well spake the Holy Ghost by the mouth of Isaiah the prophet, or the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David the prophet, etc.
So it goes to show that David and Isaiah and these men, they didn't dream these things up out of their own imagination,
but rather it was by the inspiration of God.
The term inspiration of God literally means God breathed.
So God spake all those words.
That's what it means when we say the Bible is inspired by God.
We mean that God breathed the words. God spake the words.
He was speaking through these men.
Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
He spake by the mouth of David. He spake by the mouth of Isaiah, etc.
So that's what we mean when we say the Bible is inspired by God.
So what does inspiration mean when it's coupled with the word immediately inspired?
What does that mean? What do people mean by that when they say that?
Well, first of all, let me just read you what the dictionary says for the word immediate.
Well, it says occurring or accomplished without delay.
Instant following or proceeding without a lapse of time.
Having no object or space intervening of or relating to the present time or moment without intervening medium or agent direct.
OK, now let's stop and think about this.
Is the King James Bible, is our English Bible immediately inspired by God?
That's the question. Now, of course, the King James Bible is the inspired word of God.
But it derives its inspiration from the Greek and Hebrew original.
OK, because of the fact that the inspiration of the King James is not direct.
Remember what immediate means direct without an intervening medium or agent.
Well, here's the thing. There is an intervening medium or agent between God speaking and the King James Bible.
And the intermediate agent is the Greek text of the New Testament and the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.
So God did not give the Bible directly in English in 1611.
In 1611, the translators were not holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
When the Bible says holy men of God spake as they're moved by the Holy Ghost, we're talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
We're not talking about the 1611 translators.
OK, now, of course, our English Bible is the inspired word of God because of the fact that it accurately translates the original Greek and Hebrew, which are the inspired word of God.
So it's still what God said, whether I'm reading it in Greek or English.
It's what God said. Those are the things that God spoke. Those are the words that God spake.
Now, obviously, translating it into English, OK, doesn't take away the inspiration.
Not inspired anymore. We lost the inspiration.
It's still the inspired word of God. But was it immediately inspired in English?
No, because there was, what did the dictionary say?
There's a lapse in time because the word of God was inspired back when it was the Hebrew Old Testament.
It was inspired back when it was the Greek New Testament.
Then you have a lapse in time and it's still inspired in 1611.
It's still inspired in 2020. OK, so that's all that we mean by the term immediate inspiration.
So why anyone would have a problem with that kind of blows my mind because it should be obvious to everyone that the English Bible didn't fall out of the sky in 1611 or that they weren't getting new revelations or divine inspiration in 1611.
But that rather they took an existing copy of God's word that's already inspired.
You know, they already have an inspired Old Testament to work with in Hebrew.
They translated it into English and it's still inspired.
Now, here's the thing about about 10 years or so ago, there was a big controversy over Pastor Jack Scott.
So Pastor Jack Scott was the pastor of the largest independent fundamental Baptist church in the world.
First Baptist Church of Ham in Indiana.
And he had a Bible college called Howells Anderson College with about fifteen hundred students at the time.
And Pastor Jack Scott started to criticize the King James Bible, talking about how it's filled with errors and saying it's not inspired.
The English Bible is not inspired by God and people freaked out, rightfully so.
And in fact, the founder of the college because the college was co-founded by Jack Hiles and Russell Anderson.
So the co-founder of the college, Russell Anderson, he wrote an open letter where he broke fellowship with Jack Scott and even removed his endorsement from the college that bears his name.
He even said, I came and endorsed Hiles Anderson College because of what Scott was teaching.
And of course, Scott was a big time heretic for a lot of other reasons.
Not only did he attack the King James Bible, but then he started just attacking other core doctrines, saying that you could be saved without the word of God at all.
You could be saved without even knowing the name of Jesus. I mean, just teaching all kinds of crazy stuff.
OK, and now he's in federal prison, but that's another story.
So the point is, though, that's not the point.
The point is that when Jack Scott said that the KJV was not inspired and so forth, hundreds of pastors took him to task over this.
Hundreds of independent fundamental Baptist King James only pastors took him to task over this.
And here's what they said.
They said that the King James Bible is inspired because it's the preserved word of God and it accurately translates the Greek and Hebrew.
They all were saying that the King James derives its inspiration from the original Greek and Hebrew.
None of them were saying because I remember reading what they were saying at the time.
I remember listening to and paying attention to this controversy.
Nobody was saying, yeah, God inspired the Bible in the early sixteen hundreds again in English.
You know, God filled these men that were translating, you know, that they that they somehow spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, that they were divinely inspired, getting new revelation, new inspiration.
Because that is a very specific teaching of a very small fringe group amongst independent fundamental Baptist known as Ruckmanites, followers of Peter Ruckman and Sam Gipp.
That represents a small faction of just a lunatic fringe that believes that the KJV was immediately inspired in 1611.
That has never been the mainstream view of independent fundamental Baptist.
And during that whole controversy over Jack Scott, all the hundreds of House Anderson graduates who were upset and voicing their opinions, none of them were saying that they were all saying, hey, it's inspired because it's the preserved word of God.
It's preserved inspiration.
And here's the thing, just by saying the term immediate immediately inspired, you know, these bozo Ruckmanites now in 2020 are saying, oh, well, if you say that the Hebrew and the Greek are the ones that are immediately inspired, you're denying the inspiration of our English Bible.
It's actually the opposite, because if you denied the inspiration of the English Bible, you wouldn't have a separate term called immediately inspired.
Because the whole point of saying immediately inspired is to differentiate it from what?
The preserved inspiration that we have or the derived inspiration that we have in the King James, or any any faithful translation into any language, okay.
Any faithful translation into any language is inspired by God, it's the inspired word of God, but it's not immediately inspired. It's the preserved inspiration derived from what God originally spake in Greek and Hebrew.
This is common sense. This is what the vast majority of independent fundamental Baptists understand. It's the vast majority of what King James only misunderstand.
It's only this small, ignorant, lunatic fringe that just thinks that the English Bible fell out of the sky, as opposed to be faithfully translated from Greek and Hebrew originals.
So I hope that that clears up any misunderstanding about this term, immediately inspired or the immediate inspiration. Is our English Bible inspired?
Well, hey, if it's not inspired, when did it expire, right? But that's because it's the preserved word of God, and it derives its inspiration from the Greek and Hebrew from which it was translated.
That should be obvious. You can't bring a clean thing out of an unclean. That's what the Bible says.
And so if the Greek original is unclean, if the Hebrew original is unclean, you can't get a clean King James. That's common sense.
So if you're going to believe that the King James is the word of God, which that's what I believe, you know, I believe that our English Bible is God's word in English, then you have to believe that the Greek that it came from is perfect.
And you have to believe that the Hebrew it came from is perfect, unless you're going to believe in some immediate inspiration in 1611, where God gave new revelations.
And that's a very strange minority view of just a few people. And it makes no sense. And it's not biblical.
And so I hope this video helps clear up that term immediate inspiration, why that's not a bad term at all.
It actually makes perfect sense. And it's accurate and right to say that the Greek and Hebrew are what was immediately inspired, and that the English derives its inspiration from that.
God bless you. Have a great day.