Excerpts from Spurgeon's Final Manifesto -
On the Word of God

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

From C.H. Spurgeon's Final Manifesto given to his students April 1891.

It is sadly common among ministers to add a word or subtract a word from the passage, or in some way debase the language of sacred writ...Our reverence for the Great Author of Scripture should forbid all mauling of His Words...

No alteration of Scripture can by any possibility be an improvement...Today it is still the self-same mighty Word of God that it was in the hands of our Lord Jesus...

If this Book be not infallible, where shall we find infallibility? We have given up the Pope, for he has blundered often and terrible, but we shall set up instead of him a horde of little popelings, fresh from college.

Are these correctors of Scripture infallible? Is it certain that our Bibles are not right, but that the critics must be so?...But where shall infallibility be found? "The depth said, It is not in me" yet those who have no depth at all would have us imagine that it is in there; or else by perpetual change they hope to hit upon!

All possibility of certainty is transferred from the spiritual man to a class of persons whose scholarship is pretentious, but who do not even pretend to spirituality. We shall gradually be so bedoubted and becriticzed that only a few of the most profound will know what is Bible and what is not, and they will dictate to all the rest of us. I have no more faith in their mercy than their accuracy.

They will rob us of all that we hold most dear, and glory in the cruel deed. This is the same "reign of terror" we will not endure, for we still believe that God reveals Himself rather to babe than to the wise and prudent...We do not despise learning, but we will never say of culture or criticism, "These be thy gods, O Israel."

Do you see why men would lower the degree in inspiration in Holy Writ, and would fain reduce it to an infinitesimal quantity? It is because the truth of God is to be supplanted...whenever a man begins to lower your view of inspiration, it is because he has a trick to play, which is not easily performed in the light...To these who belittle inspiration and inerrancy we will give place by subjection, no, not for an hour!

Editor's note: The Revised Version, based on Westcott and Hort's corruption of the Greek, was published in 1881, ten years before this. It is interesting and curious that so many modern day Bible critics and scholars, who assure us that the Bible is only inspired "in the original manuscripts" and we are to trust their judgment and scholarship above all else, admire and quote Spurgeon so liberally, but not on this subject. There is something disingenuous about exalting a man as "the Prince of Preachers" while doing one of the very things that he spoke so strongly against - corrupting and correcting the words of God while claiming to be so much above the common man that we can't possibly understand the issue.

As others have so accurately said, if we do not have an inerrant scripture today that we can hold in our hands and read for ourselves, we cannot know if any of the Bible is true. If we admit errors anywhere, all of it is called into question, for who alive has ever seen an "original manuscript"?

The majority text solidly supports the King James Version of the Bible (along with some in other languages) because it is the text upon which it is based. Yet we are lied to, misinformed, and manipulated into thinking that some modern day scholar knows more about the word of God than God does. Sound like hyperbole? Why would you let people who have never seen an original tell you that they know what is in it? How can they know what God meant or what was in the originals or if there are errors in the KJV or other Textus Receptus based translation? Unless they are wiser than God, that isn't possible. Since they cannot be wiser than God, they must of necessity be the liars. Romans 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

The contradictions between various translations should make any honest person stop and question. They cannot all be right. They cannot all "contain the word of God." They cannot all be faithful "renderings." There are only two options. Either God is a liar and not powerful enough to preserve His word for us without error, or the humans who make these claims are liars. Personally, I trust God more than humans.

Psalm 138:2-3 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.

graphics and backgrounds by Mary Stephens
posted 2021; CA