Inconsistencies in the Revised Version

There are some remarkable inconsistencies in the revised version evidently arising from the “blindness of the guides.” e.g. Rom. 14:9, “Lord of both the dead and the living.” Now, “both” and “and” here are the same in Greek, viz., kai. It would read ungrammatically if it were translated “Lord and of the dead and of the living.” The same remark applies to the following and other passages.

1 Tim. 4:16, “Save both thyself and them that hear thee:” also to Rom. 11:33, “O depth of riches, both of wisdom and knowledge of God!” Here “Kai” is pronounced “both.”

Now, why have the revisers not translated these two “kais” similarly elsewhere? Because, being ignorant of “the truth,” they have missed the Apostle’s meaning, e.g. in 1 Cor. 4:9. They should have adopted the marginal reading. How could the Apostles be “a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men? Where is the distinction here between the world and men? “A spectacle to the world both to angels and to men” is intelligible, for there are only two parties of spectators, not three.

Again, in 2 Tim. 4:1, we read the following: “I charge thee in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the quick and dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom.” If they had been aware that there is no reward for deceased saints until Christ’s kingdom, and not then until the judgment has been satisfactorily passed, they would have known that Paul meant to convey “I charge thee both by his appearing and his kingdom;” that is to say, “I charge thee both by the prospect of having to give an account at his appearing, and by the hope of sharing in his kingdom.”

They seem to be under the impression that his kingdom and appearance are to be simultaneous. In 1 Thess. 5, 23, they have missed the meaning again. This passage has always been considered a great prop of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and a proof of that of the Trinity as exemplified in the threefold nature of man; and the orthodox have racked their brains in elaborating Paul’s supposed discrimination between spirit and soul, and in expounding the distinction between the two. If it were properly translated, all this fog would be cleared away, for according to the foregoing rule of grammar we should read, “And the God of peace sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit, both soul and body, be preserved entire, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Observe the verb is in the singular number. “May it,” not “may they be preserved.” Not three things to be preserved, but one, consisting of two parts. While the body is corruptible it cannot permanently retain its hold on the spirit of life, but when it is perfected, it will become a body of spiritual nature, or a “spirit,” or an incorruptible body, animated by an inseparable life principle imparted to it by Christ, who has “become a life imparting spirit.” “I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish” (John 10:28). Paul uses “spirit” in the sense of “the whole being” in Rom. 1:9, “For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit, in the gospel of His Son. Here he evidently meant to convey that he obeyed the command to “Love the Lord his God, with all his heart, and (or both) with all his soul, and with all his mind” (Matt. 22:37); or, as David says (Ps. 119:10), “With my whole heart have I sought Thee”—that is, with his whole being. Paul’s idea then is—“May you be sanctified now, and obtain incorruptibility and immortality at the return of Christ.