The Calvinist ESV: Titus 1:2, John 7:8, Rev. 4:11

Okay, time to start giving the newest verses (#60-91) in "The Calvinist ESV" series [from the long post "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)"] their own shorter posts, like I did #1-59.  Here is #60-62:

#60: Titus 1:2 (KJV): “… God, that cannot lie…”  And here’s the ESV: “… God, who never lies…”  To have a God who never lies is not necessarily the same thing as a God who cannot lie.  A God who never lies could still be able to lie, could have a deceptive side or the desire to lie but simply doesn’t act on it.  I would rather have a God who cannot lie because there is no deception in Him than a God who can lie but chooses not to (a more untrustworthy character).  In the concordance, the Greek word which covers the phrase "who cannot lie" is defined as "free from falsehood."  I would expect that means there is no falsehood whatsoever in God Himself, in His entire Being, not just in His speech.  Therefore, He cannot lie, making the KJV more accurate. 

#61: In John 7, Jesus sends His disciples up to the feast without Him and then He shows up later.  The KJV is one of the few translations that doesn’t turn Jesus into a liar.

John 7:8 in the KJV says “Go ye up unto this feast; I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come”, meaning that He won’t go now but will go later, which is what happens.

But the ESV (and many others) says “You go up to the feast.  I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come,” which sounds like Jesus is saying that He’s not going to the feast at all, which would make Him a liar because He eventually does go.  And the comma after “I am not going up to the feast” makes it sound especially so, as if that first part stands alone: “I am not going to the feast.”  Which, as we know after reading the rest of the story, is untrue.

#62: Revelation 4:11 (KJV): “… for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”  And now the ESV: “… for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”  Interesting!  One says things were created for God’s pleasure, and the other removes the idea of God’s emotions/desire and says simply that things were created by His Will.

To Calvinists, God’s Will is essentially synonymous with God pre-planning/causing everything: “God wills everything that happens, and everything that happens is because He willed it,” as if nothing could happen that He doesn’t will and as if we couldn’t fail to do His Will.

But as I’ve come to see it (keeping the Bible verses and God’s character intact), God’s Will is often more about what He wants to have happen, His ideal plan.  And this is confirmed by the Greek meaning of the word “pleasure” in Rev. 4:11 in the KJV (a.k.a. "will" in the ESV), which is essentially a combination of God’s pleasure and what He wills.  The concordance says that it’s often about God’s “preferred Will,” about “the result hoped for with the particular desire/wish.”  It’s not about God preplanning everything that happens and then causing it to happen, but it’s about what God prefers to have happen, meaning that what He prefers doesn’t always happen and that things can happen that He doesn’t prefer (yet He can still work it all for good, into His plans – He’s just that wise and powerful and sovereign).  This makes it much less “hard-determinism” than Calvinism’s view of His Will.

And the “preferred Will” definition better explains verses such as Jesus telling us to pray “Your Will be done” (Matthew 6:10) and Jesus saying that He came not to do His Will but the Will of the Father (John 5:30) and Jesus’s parable of the servant who didn’t do the Will of the master (Luke 12:47), all of which use the same Greek word that Rev. 4:11 uses.

If, as Calvinism says, God’s Will is essentially the same as preplanning/causing everything that happens and nothing different could happen – if it would always happen no matter what – then why would we need to pray for His Will to get done, why would Jesus need to agree to put God’s Will first, and how could the servant not do it?  It doesn’t make sense.

But if it’s about what God wants to have happen and if He leaves the choice up to us to do it or not (as seen all throughout the Bible), well, now those verses make sense.  God’s Will is His preferences of what He wants to have happen [He wills that all men are saved (1 Timothy 2:4), that no one perishes (2 Peter 3:9), that we give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18), that we avoid sexual immorality (1 Thess. 4:3), that we do good to silence the ignorant talk of foolish people (1 Peter 2:15), etc., none of which always happens], but He leaves it up to us to do or not do what He wants us to do, to choose to pray for/seek/obey His preferred Will or to follow our own plans.

 

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.