"And now they sin more
and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, [and] idols
according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they
say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.
William
Tyndale - Heretical Blasphemer?
“So what had Tyndale done in his translation that was so heretical? According to David Daniell, Tyndale had translated the Greek word for 'elder' as 'elder' instead of 'priest', he had translated the Greek word for 'congregation' as 'congregation' instead of 'church', the Greek word for 'repentance' as 'repentance' instead of 'penance' etc. Why were such differences important to the church? The Roman Church has priests, not elders. A congregation implies a locally autonomous group of believers guided by the Holy Spirit and not a hierarchically unified church subject to a Pope. (Or a General Conference) The Roman Church is built on penance and indulgences to the priest and Church, not repentance to, and forgiveness from God. (See Martin Luther's 95 Theses on Indulgences, the debate that sparked the Reformation). In trying to faithfully render the Greek into English, Tyndale's translation exposed the errors of the church to the people, which quickly brought the wrath of the church down on him.” Brothers and sisters, I have been so strongly burdened with the truth that if people had only understood this true meaning in the New Testament for the word we call ‘church’, that so many ‘ISSUES’ today would be much easier to understand and our duty to God be Oh, so much more plain! In the Old Testament we have a tragic story about a corrupt form of worship that came into ancient Israel that eventually lead to their destruction. It was just after the dividing of the kingdom into two parts. This is not only an ancient history that we can read with abstract interest—this is an enacted parable—a prophecy absolutely fulfilled in our time and a warning to the faithful. I encourage each reader to read chapter 12 of 1 Kings and 17 of 2 Kings prayerfully—asking the Holy Spirit to open to you how it is being fulfilled today before our eyes!
Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves [of] gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (represents Sin, atheism and worldliness) Now if there is one thing that is more clear than any other in the Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible it is this; both most the people of ancient Israel and the people of modern Israel, (Advent Believers) are bent and determined to follow their own ways no matter what the prophets tell them. In spite of the warnings of God through prophets, Holy Scriptures and Godly watchmen, they bull-headedly make some kind of lame excuse (“Well, you see, we have no choice but to do it this way.” Since when is there “NO CHOICE” but to sin!?) and go their own way anyhow. I urge all who read this to get more acquainted with the sad history of this movement from 1844 to this day—(and I don’t mean the embroidered histories put out by conference controlled publishers but true information) Even a thorough reading of Spirit of Prophecy books like ‘Testimonies to Ministers’; ‘Spalding Magan collection’; ‘Selected Messages’; and ‘Testimonies to the church 1-9’, will clearly show the pattern—they give lip service to the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy but go their own way regardless. Now please take another look at the above texts—Here we see a situation that King Jeroboam found himself in—God had given him the ten tribes, but the place of worship was still in Jerusalem, in Judah. Now he reasoned—if my subjects keep going up to Jerusalem for the feasts, (As they were ordered by God to do) they may eventually become alienated from me and will kill me! You see he was not walking in God’s ways and he knew it—and as the Pharisees that later followed in his tracks, he ‘feared the people”. Now we are going to look at our modern-day parallel. As the leadership of the church rejected more and more the counsel of the Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible, they were walking further and further from the paths that God had cast up for the righteous to walk in. As this happens, Godly men and women who obey God and search the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy for their rules of life came more and more into conflict with the doings of the apostatizing structure. Faithful watchmen would oppose the plans and cry out that the organization was getting off track. So they needed a way to stop the people from knowing just how much off the track they were and are—so they set up two calves—they set up a ‘church manual’ and a ‘statement of beliefs’–at first it was put forward as just for ‘convenience’; “You do not have to walk all that way to Jerusalem (search the Scriptures and Spirit of Prophecy) to know your duty—see here? We’ll make it so much easier! Here is a simple, easy to understand Church Manual and a concise ‘Statement of Beliefs’ Of course, we don’t intend these to take the place of the worship in Jerusalem, but isn’t this so much easier?” Just as Jeroboam was afraid of the influence of the true worship in Jerusalem, so these leaders had to be afraid of the true scriptures and Spirit of Prophecy teachings as they would ‘undermine their authority’ because they were not obeying God, but walking in sparks of their own kindling. If the congregation had realized how far out these leaders were they would ‘kill’ them. (Put them out of office!) Let us continue to read this ancient parable about the two calves:
1 Kings
12:29-33 And he set the one in
Bethel, (House of God) and the other put he in Dan. (A tribe that will never
enter heaven!)
And he made an
house of high places, (seminaries) and made priests of the lowest of the people,
which were not of the sons of Levi. (no longer did ministers have to prove they
were called by the Holy Spirit)
And this thing
became a sin: for the people went [to worship] before the one, [even] unto Dan. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that [is] in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. (He usurped the place of God) He put his calves right into the ‘House of God’ and they were welcomed by ‘Dan’ the worldly of the congregation, that will never see heaven, Yes it was so much easier to just grab the ‘church manual’ to know what to do, rather than pray and fast and study like our pioneer leaders did, for the leading of the Holy Spirit. (The ONLY real authority the ‘church’ has) Jeroboam had no authority to offer sacrifices or officiate in the Worship of God. Here we see exemplified the presumptuous usurpation of authority by leaders to whom God has not given this authority! What is the ONLY authority a conference ‘leader’ really has?
“Jesus
called them unto him, and said, ye know that the princes of the Gentiles
exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon
them. But it shall not be so among you.” Matthew 20:25, 26. No authority and
no dominion in God’s church.
“Going down to
the last paragraph in James White’s last article on organization. The year
that he died. Here is what I read, talking about the people in the conferences
and the General Conferences he says this, “They may counsel with the state
conference committees in reference to ministers laboring here or there. But they
should never direct.” I have made a study of this, friends, and the most
authority that Ellen G. White ever gave to a conference president or a union
conference president or the General Conference president or their committees was
counsel and advice.” Elder David Bauer So what about “duly constituted ‘church’ authority?” Well, the Bible only speaks of God’s ‘congregation’, not a ‘church’ as we understand it to be, with a structure and ‘leaders’ and a hierarchical government. What is the ONLY authority the congregation of God has in this world? It is this—plain and simple, Brothers and sisters, and I hope you read this until it sinks in—the ONLY authority is the AUTHORITY of GOD’S HOLY WORD! The minute a congregation or an individual steps off the base of a plain ‘Thus saith the LORD’ he or she or it has NO AUTHORITY at all! So here we have Jeroboam with his two calves—so what does he proceed to do now that he has them in the ‘house of God’ and they are accepted by ‘the worldly lost’ among God’s professed people?
1 Kings 12:33
So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth
day of the eighth month, [even] in the month which he had devised of his own
heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon
the altar, and burnt incense. Notice please that although the King was the highest ‘duly constituted authority’ in the land—God did not sanction what he did—it was only the devising of his own heart. And so, Brothers and sisters, that is just what Adventism’s two calves are also—and just of that much value is all their ‘duly constituted church authority’. It is all only that which they have devised in their own heart. So the King made religious feasts and got the people to worship his two calves of convenience. He reveled in his usurped ‘authority’ and the people corrupted themselves more and more. It is not within the scope of a reasonably sized presentation to cover all the lessons for us found in this tragic account, but suffice it to say when the King was ‘officiating’ in his usurped role, a ‘man of God’ cried out against him; (Historic Adventists) And he put out his hand to have him killed. (Lawsuits and disfellowshipping) His hand was withered—(What the leadership is doing to exert authority is actually destroying what little they have left.)
Notice this: 1
Kings 13:2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and
said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto
the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of
the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon
thee. Josiah means literally—‘founded of God’ so you see here a clear prophecy that the true worship that God founded in 1844 will sweep away Jeroboam’s false system. There is a warning here also for “Historic Adventists”—Don’t let so-called prophets lead you one step away from the word we have received from God, testified to by the Holy Spirit in the pioneer days! The Lion is waiting—‘seeking whom he may devour’. What did God do about all this? Join me in studying 2 Kings 17:13-15 Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and
against Judah, by all the prophets, [and by] all the seers, saying, Turn ye from
your evil ways, and keep my commandments [and] my statutes, according to all the
law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the
prophets.
He send warning after warning and cried unto them to return to the commandments and live. But what did they do?? Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God. And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that [were] round about them, [concerning] whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them. They would not listen—the two calves made them bold and they brought in more and more corruptions until their worship was absolutely a sickening abomination before the Lord! Just so have apostate leadership egged on by the worldly tribe of ‘Dan’ in the congregation, brought in more and more corruption and abomination until there is no resemblance to the original faith of our pioneers. They are made bold by the two calves, which are kept in tune by being ‘updated’ constantly to match the corruption instead of to reflect the will of God in His Holy Word! (Did you know they don’t even have to hold a GC to update them now!) Let’s continue: 2 Kings 17:16-17 And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, [even] two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. See again another parallel—they allow their children to be corrupted and destroyed by the apostasy and the use of abominations like ‘New Age’ practices and entertainment like ‘magicians’, illusionists and worldly rock music. Here also we see the ‘celebration’ style which is such an abomination to God that He says He will never forgive it!!
Isaiah
22:12 And in that day did
the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to
girding with sackcloth: (The Great Day of Atonement is the final judgment of
God’s people- no time to party!)
22:14
And it was revealed in mine ears by the LORD of hosts, Surely this
iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord GOD of hosts. What eventually happened here? The Assyrians destroyed them completely. The Assyrians represent civil governments and modern Babylon. The Bible tells us they are a ‘cruel people’ and they use force to get their way. Be warned, oh thou that dwellest carelessly with the daughter of Babylon! Zechariah 2:7 Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest [with] the daughter of Babylon.) Why do we see Hosea talking about this happening, it was years before his time?—Because it is a parable and a parallel to what is happening today! Hosea 10:5 The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: (House of Vanity) for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof [that] rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it. In Hosea, Samaria is used as a parallel to modern SDA structure. Here we see a time when it will be destroyed and those who have worshipped it will mourn over it. What an appropriate name—the calves of the house of vanity? Oh, how vain it is to set up our own devising and ideas and ways in the place of God’s truths and then how terrible to seduce, manipulate, trick, hypnotize, force and coerce people to worship them, instead of going up to ‘Jerusalem’ the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy to learn our duty for ourselves, the way God has always intended. Here we see again the pathetic picture of our day: Hosea 13:2 And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, [and] idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.
They have been warned, pleaded with, wept over and yet they ‘sin more
and more’. They just become more determined to walk in the sparks of their own
kindling. And now we get into an even more serious side of our study, the
idolatry of modern Israel. How is it that modern SDAs have ‘made molten images
of their silver… according to their own understanding? Well it is very clear—massive amounts of money have been spent in building up huge institutions of
schools and medical work as well as conference buildings, they have all been
made according to their own understanding, and not according to the
counsel of the Spirit of Prophecy, and the people and leaders of the
denomination take PRIDE in these and they worship these great institutions and
they worship the denomination that gives life unto these institutions saying,
‘who is like unto the SDA church? Who is like unto the great General
Conference? Who can make war against her?” And they bow down and obey and
admire and worship these leaders who walk in the sparks of their own kindling
and not after the council of the Lord.
Thou shalt have no other God’s before thee! Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image… Now just what part of ‘thou shalt not’ didn’t you
understand? Brothers and sisters, it tears me at my very heart to write this—But who am I? God has wept over this denomination, the prophet Ellen White has
wept time and again over it, Jesus, saw her when He wept over Jerusalem, are you
weeping too? I hope so!
What are they doing now? They are saying “Kiss the Calves”! Let the men
that sacrifice kiss the calves. All
the ministers have to swear allegiance to the two calves—the Church Manual and
the ’27+ Beliefs’. You either
swear allegiance to those calves or you are out!
Friends—I would want to be ‘out’ from those who are serving
themselves and false usurped authority than be ‘in’ with ‘Dan’,
wouldn’t you? In Romania a conference church was locked against it’s members
because they refused to go ‘kiss the calves’ and stood on the Bible. I know
that isn’t the only place it’s happening.
Brothers and sisters, this is serious—there is a choice to make:
Joshua 24:15
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom
ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the
other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell:
but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Getting Personal
I have to
write further in a different vein on this subject of SDA Idolatry. I believe
that most of us who have been in the denomination for any length of time have
this to repent of. We have loved
the ‘church’. We have loved it as an entity in itself and yes; in all too
many instances we have worshiped it also, mistaking our loyalty to that
denomination as loyalty to God. And it isn’t, Brothers and sisters, it is a
terrible, deceptive counterfeit for true loyalty to God and His truth.
If
we could only grasp the fact that the meaning of the word ‘church’ in the
Bible is not what we see it as today—it meant the ‘congregation of God’s
people’. It is any group of believers that follow the truth of the Word of
God. It isn’t something you point to and say—there is the ‘church’ of
God. That congregation has only one Head and that is Christ, it partakes of only
one food—the Word of God in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy; it has only one
authority—the Word of God. Its members are all on a level and all are to take
their orders from the one Head.
Brothers
and sisters, there is no hierarchy in heaven, and there is no hierarchy that God
recognizes on earth either!
But you say, isn’t it of God to be organized? Didn’t God organize the
SDA denomination? The only organization God recognizes is that He laid down, he
never wanted the SDA church to operate on ‘kingly authority’. He never
wanted Israel to have a king—but they insisted—He let them have what they
demanded but it wasn’t His choice for them. God has born long with this people
and has let them have their own way, but it was not His choice for them! The
only organization that was needed was to support missionaries and outreach, not
to sit like a queen and lord it over God’s congregation.
Many
of us have or are going through terrible guilt feelings, as we realize we must
take a stand on God’s side or be lost. We’re in the same boat as the Jews in
Jesus day, we’ve allowed ourselves to be tricked into worshipping a
denomination in the place of God and yet we still think we are worshipping God.
It is pitiful that we have to struggle and wean ourselves away from worshipping
the denomination and admiring and worshipping false leaders, who we have believed,
stand in the place of God and are His mouthpieces, when they have only usurped
authority that God never gave them or wanted them to have. The Jews worshipped
the Temple, their leaders and the ceremonies they took part in. Friends we’ve
been doing the same thing for decades!
All
our shiny idols are arrayed before us is glowing colors, our institutions, our
hospitals, our schools, our mission work, and our hearts ‘swell with pride’
in ‘our church’. Friends these things are as useless as Samaria’s idols—the ‘Assyrians’ (governments) already either own them or control most of
them. They cannot save us; neither can this corrupt structure. Neither can the
conference ‘brethren’, neither can your pastor. Do you think when the Sunday
Law hits and the law is coming to take you away, that your pastor will be there
to hold your hand? Well think again! He won’t.
If he’s Godly, he’ll be in a worse boat and if he
is not, he may be among
those coming to get you!
It
is time to repent of our worship of ourselves, our denomination and our leaders
and return to worship and OBEY God while there is still a few minutes of
earth’s time left to get a hiding place in Him before the storm breaks and it
is all swept away.
I
am speaking of my own experience as I write these things; there is no one more
guilty of this pitiful gullibility than I was. I always believed that every cent
I would put into the denominational plates, whether tithe or offerings, would go
to do exactly what I was giving it to do—100%
God’s own will. I believed that all of these men down in the conference
offices spent most of their time studying the Spirit of Prophecy and the
Bible, so of course they would never do something that wasn’t in
accordance with God’s will. I was sure each minister, (we didn’t have
‘pastors’ back then, just elders and ministers) had to know all about
the Spirit of Prophecy and certainly by the time they were in the
General Conference, I was sure they’d probably know most of it off by
heart!
I
would never dream that any minister would appropriate to his own selfish
purposes even one cent or take advantage of any position for his own ends. We
believed that you could go anywhere in the world and find another Adventist and
you would believe alike and be as brethren. (There was a time when it was
possible to happen, but certainly not now!)
We believed that there was always harmony among the leaders because they
all followed the Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible. I hear you laughing? Well,
there was a time when I really believed that! Pity me; and pity the ones who
still do! I now know that the reason for at least outward harmony wasn’t the
powerful truth of God, but usurped, kingly authority in the conferences, where
God had never wanted it to be.
When
I began to hear strange and different things from the pulpits, I would wonder
about it, and say, “Hmm, I’ve never thought about it like that before.”
But did I go as the noble Bereans and check out the inspired counsel for myself?
No! I’d just shrug it off and think, ‘Well, he must know more about it than
me and I’m sure he’s right.” And I’d bow to the pastor and change my
beliefs. I kissed the calves and worshipped in Samaria. I didn’t high-tail it
to Jerusalem and worship God—I worshipped the denomination. And I wondered why
I had no peace and victory in my life. It was no mystery—I was an idolater and
an adulterer—worshipping a man-made structure and following after men instead
of my God.
I
never dreamed that the SDA ‘Church’ could go into apostasy. If I’d have
been ‘going to Jerusalem’ as I was expected to by God, I would have seen as
I do now that not only could the denomination apostatize but also it was all
foretold in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy that she was, and would, and she is
fulfilling it to the ‘T’.
Even
when by God’s grace I began to see the reality of apostasy and that all my
delusions were false, I have still had a terrible battle to sever those false
authority cords and that sentimental ‘attachment’ to a dream that had been
only in my mind all along—that was always only an illusion and never was a
reality. I have had to walk the humble road to Jerusalem—to repent of
kissing the calves, and ignoring and neglecting the prophets, and of worshipping
my SDA self. I have had to bow before the great God of the Universe and
learn His ways, which in many cases are far different than denominational ways.
Some
of us have come to the realization of what we have been doing more quickly than
others. It has a lot to do with how often we ‘went to Jerusalem’, studied
the inspired counsel like God had commanded.
Some who have done what the Lord expected all of us to do—kept
studying the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy—have seen through the
deceptions, but even some of these, like a husband clinging to a hopelessly
adulterous wife, have still been reluctant to ‘let her go’ and serve the
Lord in purity and truth. We sentimentally cling to the ‘wife of our youth’,
and keep trying to make it ‘work out’ somehow.
I plead with you, don’t keep kissing the calves—don’t
keep marriage vows to a false woman. She can’t save you; she worships her own
self. She is not the ‘daughter of Zion’, she is a lewd imposter, a usurper
of Divine rights over the congregation.
The
‘church’ of God is His faithful congregation, not a structure, not a
hierarchy, designed to guide us to follow Rome. The daughter of Zion in the Bible always dwells at Jerusalem;
that is she stands on the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy—she stands on the
‘platform of truth’ that the Holy Spirit gave her!
Isaiah
52:2 Shake thyself from the
dust; arise, [and] sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy
neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
The Daughter of Zion is the congregation, friends, not the structure!
Break off the chains of the imposter and stand up on the Word of thy God—He can
save you, He will carry you through! What ‘ship’ is going through? The
Faithful Congregation. The 'Danites' will not because they refuse to get on the
platform. The ‘Jeroboams', won’t because they won’t humble themselves to
‘go down to Jerusalem.’ The celebrationists won’t because they’d rather
play than pray. The ministers that ‘kiss the calves’ won’t, because they
know who signs their paychecks. The licentious feasters won’t, because they
don’t want to do without anything they enjoy.
But if YOU do, if you repent, then the great God of Heaven will be your
protector and guide, He’ll see you through, He’ll love you faithfully,
He’ll never let you down. Listen to this!
Zechariah
9:9 Rejoice greatly, O
daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto
thee: he [is] just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt the foal of an ass. That is the only KING God wants you to have. Closing thought: “We need not worry about the latter rain. All we have to do is to keep the vessel clean and right side up and prepared for the reception of the heavenly rain, and keep praying, "Let the latter rain come into my vessel. Let the light of the glorious angel which unites with the third angel shine upon me; give me a part in the work; let me sound the proclamation; let me be a colaborer with Jesus Christ." Thus seeking God, let me tell you, He is fitting you up all the time, giving you His grace” UL 283 (1891). Last Day Events, pg. 194 What does it mean to have the vessel ‘right side up?” It must be pointing towards God—not man or an organization!
William
Tyndale - Heretical Blasphemer? (Comment and emphasis mine)
I
have recently purchased an updated edition of William Tyndale's 1534 New
Testament, republished by Yale University Press in 1989, (this edition in 1995).
In it David Daniell has updated much of the Old English into the modern, so as
to make it easier to read today. The translation itself is claimed to remain
intact and faithful to the 1534 edition. In looking it over, some interesting
items have come to light.
According
to Mr. Daniell, the Bishop of London (Tunstall) hunted down every one of
Tyndale's Bibles he could find and had them burned at St. Paul's cross. He very
nearly succeeded in destroying them all, as only a dozen originals still exist
today. What is not commonly known today is that much of the King James Version
borrowed heavily from Tyndale's work, though he is not generally credited for
it. At the time, King Henry VIII's chancellor, Sir Thomas More, had this to say
about Tyndale—he calls him 'a beast', as one of the 'hell-hounds that the devil
hath in his kennel', discharging a 'filthy foam of blasphemies out of his
brutish beastly mouth'.
So
what had Tyndale done in his translation that was so heretical? According to
David Daniell, Tyndale had translated the Greek word for 'elder' as
'elder' instead of 'priest', he had translated the Greek word for 'congregation'
as 'congregation' instead of 'church', the Greek word for 'repentance' as
'repentance' instead of 'penance' etc. Why were such differences
important to the church? The Roman Church has priests, not elders. A
congregation implies a locally autonomous group of believers guided by the Holy
Spirit and not a heirarchical unified church subject to a Pope. (Or a
General Conference!!) The Roman Church is built on penance and indulgences to
the priest and Church, not repentance to, and forgiveness from God. (See Martin
Luther's 95 Theses on Indulgences, the debate that sparked the Reformation). In
trying to faithfully render the Greek into English, Tyndale's translation
exposed the errors of the church to the people, which quickly brought the wrath
of the church down on him.
Tyndale
is quoted by John Foxe as follows: “Master
Tyndale happened to be in the company of a learned man, and in communing and
disputing with him drove him to that issue, that the learned man said: 'We were
better be without God's law than the Pope's. Master Tyndale, hearing that,
answered him:
'I defy
the Pope and all his Laws'; and said: 'If God spare my life, ere many years I
will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the scriptures than
thou dost'.”
In
his preface to his 1534 New Testament, Tyndale had this to say: "Moreover,
because the kingdom of heaven, which is the scripture and word of God, may be so
locked up, that he which readeth or heareth it, cannot understand it: as Christ
testifieth how the Scribes and the Pharisees had so shut it up (Matt 23) and had
taken away the key of knowledge (Luke 11) that their Jews which thought
themselves within, were yet so locked out, and are to this day that they can
understand no sentence of the scripture unto salvation, though they can rehearse
the texts everywhere and dispute thereof as subtly as the popish doctors of
dunce's dark learning, which with their sophistry, served us, as the Pharisees
did the Jews."
The
analogy of Popery with the Scribes and Pharisees is exact, precise and the
present truth. Tyndale stood for the truth as taught by the scriptures, and he
was determined to see to it that the Bible was distributed in the English
language so that others might know that same truth by reading it for themselves.
For that he gave his life. It does not surprise me, therefore, that Catholics
are taught that the early venacular Bibles were untrustworthy, and riddled with
errors and that this is why they were suppressed. The fact is that they were too
close to the truth for the Roman Church to tolerate.
Since
there is more like the above quote from Tyndale, it is no wonder that the Roman
Catholic Church declared him a heretic and had his Bibles burned. Indeed, at
Vilvorde Castle near Brussels Belgium, on the 6th of October 1536, at the
church's direction, the secular authorities* tied him to a stake, strangled him
and then set fire to him. His last words are reputed to have been "Lord,
open the King of England's eyes". Sir Thomas More also had John Tewkesbury,
Richard Bayfield and James Bainham burned at the stake for not renouncing what
Tyndale had written.
Tyndale's
dying wish was soon granted. The Matthew Bible, which was published a year after
Tyndale's death by John Rogers, a colleague of Tyndale, is largely Tyndale's
work, and it was the first English Bible published under license from the King
of England. (During the reign of "Bloody" Queen Mary however, John
Rogers was imprisoned for a year and then burned at the stake on the 4th of
February, 1555, for not accepting the doctrine of transubstantiation, denouncing
"pestilent Popery" and other heresy). King Henry VIII also
commissioned the Coverdale Bible which sold 20,000 copies within two years of
its 1539 release. This became known as the Great Bible because of its size and
was in its 7th edition by 1541. By royal decree, the Coverdale Bible was made
available for the public to read at every parish church in the kingdom and was
the official English Bible for 20 years. The Coverdale Bible was based on the
Matthew Bible which was largely Tyndale's work. In 1604 King James also
authorized the production of a "new" Bible in English, the 1611
Authorized or King James Bible, of which about 80-90% of the New Testament is
attributable to Tyndale, and the same is true for that portion of the of the Old
Testament that Tyndale had completed before his martyrdom.
*Today some Catholics will try to blame these persecutions on villainous secular
authorities. See the article Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica on Heresy and
Heretics. As you will see, it was common practice, and Roman Catholic teaching,
for "heretics" to be turned over to secular authorities for execution.
This was nothing more than a transparent and quite unsuccessful attempt to keep
the blood off the hands of the Church. There is biblical precedent for civil
authorities being pressured into carrying out executions for the church:
I
for one, do not question that Tyndale will see the kingdom of God, not because
of his mighty work, but because of his awesome faith that carried him on in the
face of such adversity. Far from being a heretic, he was clearly a saint that
will be able to face the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, boldly and without fear,
because of that faith. The same holds true for other martyrs to the truth. Their
reward in heaven will be great.
The British Library has an original edition of Tyndale's New Testament. …The ISBN for David Daniell's updated Tyndale's New Testament is 0-300-04419-4 for the hardback and 0-300-06580-9 for the paperback. It cost me a mere pittance—$15 dollars U.S. It cost William Tyndale his life, but millions of people who read their Bible in English today, are able to do so because of his courage…. Tyndale was in the process of translating the Old Testament when he was murdered. |
