I am breaking the "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)" post up into shorter segments so that each verse (or two) gets it own post.
#7: Romans 5:2 in the KJV reads: "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand..." But the ESV (along with quite a lot of others) says "Through him we have also obtained access by faith ..."
And I know you're wondering right now, "So what? What's the difference?" Well, what's the difference between "I have candy" and "I have to obtain candy"? What's the difference between "I have lungs" and "I obtained lungs"? One is about having something; the other is about having to get something.
In the KJV, we have access to grace by faith. The access is there, available to all. It's ours to accept or reject. But in the ESV, we have to obtain access, to be granted access to grace by faith. In Calvinism (in the ESV), access to grace by faith is not available to all; the elect only are given access to grace by the faith that Calvi-god gives them.
If you were in a locked room in a dungeon, would you rather "have access to the key" or need to "obtain access" to the key? In the first one, the key is available, right in front of you, yours for the taking, and all you have to do is reach out and grab it. But in the second, you don't have the key yet or have the ability to acquire the key, not until and unless you are granted access to it. And in Calvinism, the guard will only grant access to those he has predestined to set free. No one else will be granted access to the key or have the option/ability to be freed.
One little word - "obtained" - subtly but surely changes the whole meaning.
So which is right? The KJV or the ESV?
Well, if you look up the Greek for this verse (click here), I see nothing of the word "obtained." In this link, you can see that out of all the uses of the Greek word for "we have," it's written (in the NASB translation) as "obtain/obtained" only 3 times, but it's "has/have/had" 497 times. It's "have" or "obtained," not "have obtained." For it to be that, like in the ESV, that word would have to be written twice, once for "have" and once for "obtained." (Also, it says "have" is a primary verb, not a helping verb, and so it can't be used as "have obtained" anyway.) Therefore, only one use of that word is most appropriate. And according to Strong's concordance and the KJV, it's "have," which Strong's says is "to have, to hold, to possess," not to have to acquire or obtain. And so I have to go with the KJV here. "Access to grace by faith" is not something we have to go through another step to get, waiting for God to make it available to us or to grant us the ability to have it (which, in Calvinism, He only does for the elect). "Access to grace by faith" - because of what Jesus did on the cross for all sins of all people - is something we already have. It's already available to us all, right in front of us, there for the taking, and all we have to do is reach out and grab it.
(So do you still think the ESV isn't a Calvinist Bible?)
A note about the ESV vs King James:
If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, read these articles about the men who wrote the Greek texts that the ESV is based on: "Westcott and Hort: Translator's Beliefs" and "Westcott and Hort and the Greek Text." The ESV is based on the RSV, which is based on the Greek Texts of these two men (who, it sounds like, rejected the infallibility of Scripture, despised evangelicals, questioned Jesus's divinity and an eternal hell, did not believe Genesis and the creation story was literal, affirmed Darwin and evolution, etc.), which is based on two corrupted manuscripts which differ from the majority of the more reliable manuscripts that the KJV is based on.
So when something says that the ESV has only made 6% changes, it means "from the RSV," meaning that it's 94% the same as the RSV it was based on, a translation which was based on two corrupted manuscripts that disagree with the majority of the manuscripts available. It would be like if a journalist interviewed 100 people about an event ... and 95 of them said the exact same thing, but 5 told a different story ... and the journalist decided to side with the 5 and print their story as fact. Raises some red flags, doesn't it?
In the course of researching this issue, and after not knowing for decades what to think of the whole "which translation is most accurate" debate, I now side with the King James. I mean, I have several other translations, and I think different ones are good for different reasons, such as readability, compare and contrast, to hear God's Word in a fresh way, etc. But when having to decide which one is more reliable and accurate, especially considering the significant differences like those above, I have to side with the KJV (not the New King James, just the King James). And I've never been more sure of it than now, after all this research.
