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.
#22: In the KJV, Philippians 3:9 reads “… the righteousness which is of God by faith.” This clearly implies that “righteousness” comes by faith, through our faith in Him. In the original Greek, the “by” in this verse is actually “on the basis of, on account of, etc.” (Find the meaning for this particular verse, "on account of," in B.2.a under the heading "Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Strongs NT 1909.") Our righteousness is on account of, because of, a result of, our faith. And most other versions echo this, saying “based on” or “on the basis of.”
However, the ESV is one of the very few translations that changes it to “the righteousness of God that depends on faith.”
First off, is “by faith” or “on the basis of faith” so confusing that they had to change it to “depends on faith,” which is actually less clear in meaning? Depends on it for what?
Secondly, “depends on” changes the causal relationship between faith and righteousness. “Depends on” is simply about something resting/relying on something else, but it has nothing to do with being the result of it, whereas “by/on the basis of” means that righteousness comes to us because of our faith.
Why does this matter? In Calvinism, God prechose, from the beginning of time, who will be righteous (saved) and who won’t. Therefore, essentially, righteousness actually precedes faith. The elect get faith because they were prechosen, predestined, for righteousness. Faith comes second.
But in the KJV (and other versions), it’s clear that faith comes first, that righteousness is because of, the result of, having faith. Altering the causal relationship (the fact that faith comes before righteousness) allows for the Calvinist idea that faith comes after being chosen for righteousness.
No wonder Calvinists would downplay this, because if faith comes first then that would contradict the Calvinist view of predestination - that God prechose, predestined, who would believe, that He saved them before they ever had faith. And if God doesn’t predestine who believes in Him then that means we choose whether or not we believe in Him. And Calvinists can't have people running around thinking that faith is a choice we make, that it's up to us whether we believe and are saved or not.
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.
