Dr. Robert Sumner passed away in December 2016. The Biblical Evangelist newspaper is no longer being published and the ministry of Biblical Evangelism has ceased operation.

The remaining inventory of his books and gospel tracts was transferred to The Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles and may be ordered here.

Is the Sword of the Lord Anti-John R. Rice?
Dr. Robert L. Sumner, Editor

Is The Sword Of The Lord

Anti-John R. Rice?

An Observation by the Editor

One preacher brother, greatly disturbed, sent me a copy of The Sword of the Lord for April 18, 2008. In it was the first of a 3-part series by the editor on “The Independent Baptist Movement: Its Ideals, Its Integrity, Its Imperatives.” There was also an article by Editor Shelton Smith – and this is what especially troubled him – “What Is That Book You Hold in Your Hands?”

 We cut our spiritual eye teeth on The Sword of the Lord. The founder and editor for nearly a half-century (from its launching in 1934 until his Home-going in late 1980), Dr. John R. Rice, was a prominent figure on the evangelical scene – especially among Fundamentalists – and his Sword, as it was called, was read, quoted and referenced by more evangelical preachers than any other voice.

I freely admit that he was your editor’s mentor, my hero, a man I greatly admired, looked up to and considered a warm personal friend and close advisor. Our thinking and our positions on most issues were the same.

I first became associated with Dr. Rice from a distance when I placed high in the sermon contests he held in those mid-20^th century days. Later he invited me to join his staff as his assistant and a member of the staff of evangelists he had at the time. I first rejected and later accepted that gracious offer he made to this unknown, unheralded servant of the Lord.

My family moved to Wheaton, Illinois where his offices were located at the time. Within a year he asked me to become the Associate Editor – a position second only to his as the editor and one held by very few up until then; his brother Dr. Bill Rice and Dr. Bob Wells, a prominent evangelist, are the only two that come to mind. It was a significant honor of which I was not worthy.

While he considered the arrangement a winner, I did not. To be the Associate Editor I had to agree to be in the office all of the time except for one week a month when I could be out in evangelistic meetings. An evangelist by nature and by calling, I was chafing at the bit. Within months I was in his office begging him to release me. He said no. I had not, in his mind, given it a fair hearing, a proper test.

I went back and pleaded again. Eventually he agreed. While I left Wheaton at that time, I remained a Contributing Editor; stayed on the Sword Board; wrote a weekly column (“Incidents & Illustrations”) which continued until his death and still remains a regular feature in The Biblical Evangelist; prepared a host of ads for Sword books; reviewed non-Sword books; answered many doctrinal letters; and, in general, did all kinds of work that he and his longtime secretary and office manager “Miss Viola” assigned me. The musician traveling with me at the time complained that they were taking advantage of me, dumping all that work on me – and he expressed that opinion to a number of others. But I was happy to do it.

I retained this arrangement with the Sword until two years following his decease. In fact, it was during that latter time (shortly before his death) that I merged The Biblical Evangelist with The Sword (as he had begged me to do repeatedly over the years) and moved to Murfreesboro to serve on the Sword staff as an unpaid worker (my title was “Managing Editor”). At our house warming, where all the Sword employees were invited, Dr. Rice said to me repeatedly, “Bob, it is such a comfort to me that you are going to be on board again.” He certainly seemed sincere in so opining.

I say all that just to note that I was an insider, one very familiar with the workings of The Sword of the Lord and the thinking, teaching, preaching and practice of John R. Rice. I wrote his official biography, first released by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishers, Man Sent from God. It went into some detail regarding the things about which I now write.

Let me state at the start that, as far as I know, the problems about which I now write do not involve historic foundations of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3), such as the Virgin Birth, the Deity of Jesus Christ, the blood atonement involving His sacrificial death, His literal and bodily resurrection from the tomb, the verbal inspiration of the Bible (although the current Sword position on KJVOnly does bring this into question), and the literal, bodily return of Christ to set up His earthly kingdom. We salute the current Sword leadership for faithfulness in these areas.

However, in addition to the “faith” of the Bible there are also the “works” of the Bible. Involved is not merely belief, but action as well, sometimes referred to as positions or stands. And this is where Editor Shelton L. Smith and its current Sword leadership part with Founder John R. Rice and the staff that was around him for nearly a half-century.

The first issue I want to mention, which is anti-Rice teaching, is,

KJVOnlyism

Anyone doubting Dr. Rice’s position on this need only ‘glance’ through his scholarly work (I think he considered it his magnus opus) on the matter of biblical inspiration, Our God-Breathed Book – The Bible (Copyright 1969). Although published only about a decade prior to his death, it had sold nearly 20,000 copies by that time. He said there:

“Since no translation is perfect, can we have the Word of God preserved today when nearly everybody in the world must have the Bible in some translation from the original Scriptures? Yes, we say again that in the translations we have still the perfect Word of God.”

Note two things: (1) he said “no translation is perfect,” and that would include the KJV. And he offered Hebrews 4:9-11 as an illustration of a KJV error teaching salvation by works! (2) he argued that we have the Word of God preserved in “translations” (plural, not singular). In short, he rebutted the two strongest arguments Editor Smith and the KJVOnly crowd have.

In his I Am A Fundamentalist (Copyright 1975) he had a chapter, “Be A Fundamentalist BUT NOT A NUT.”  And he told about some “nuts” he had known in his long, fruitful ministry. One of the nuts he called by name was Peter Ruckman, who either originated KJVOnly doctrine or was an early, fanatical promoter of it.

If living today, Dr. Rice would have to add the name of the current Sword editor as a ‘nut’ in this area.

Dr. Smith, in The Sword under discussion, said if the Book you hold in your hands is not the King James Version, you are not holding the Bible, not holding the Word of God. He admits that Spanish folk argue over two versions of their Bible (1909 and 1960) and “both sides feel that they have a good Bible.” Since the latter, he said, has been “carefully aligned … with the King James text” he hopes the argument will soon “be a thing of the past.” Note that he judges the correct Spanish text with how well it agrees with the King James translation, not the Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek manuscripts. That is foolish; the wrong standard, of course.

He argues, “About your King James Bible you can say it is authoritative. It is God’s Word preserved for us in English … The inspired text has been preserved for us; therefore, it is inerrant and infallible.”

Those are the claims Bible scholars have always made for the original manuscripts, never for any version or text of the Bible (KJV or otherwise) until Ruckman, Hyles, Smith and others like them came along around the middle-to-late twentieth century.

In this article, Dr. Smith says, “… when two different Bibles say two different things, it poses a major problem. If they are different, at least one of them is incorrect.” But what about when two different KJV Bibles say different things, as they have frequently done over the centuries? As my friend who sent me the Sword articles noted: “[Smith] ignores the provable word differences in the editions of the KJV. These word differences face KJV-Onlyists with a dilemma: which edition is verbally inspired?”

Some of the changes are major; for example, the 1611 said “God” in Jeremiah 49:1 while today’s KJV says “Gad.” There is quite a difference between Almighty God and one of Israel’s lowliest tribes. We think the context shows Gad as correct, but that is a serious flaw in inerrancy for the original KJV. In the New Testament, the original KJV in I Corinthians 4:9 had “approved” and today’s KJV has “appointed.” Once again, that is a major difference. I ‘approve,’ for example, of the sermon in our last issue, “Preacher Without Approval” by Dr. Bill Rice, but I did not ‘appoint’ him to write it. In fact, it was first prepared, preached and published many, many years ago!

The Apostle Paul based an entire argument on singular versus plural in Galatians 3:16. The KJV 1611 and the KJV of today have scores of places where the 1611 has the plural and the modern KJV has the singular; and vice versa.

Editor Smith also left the “version” problems to discuss “textual” ones. He assures his readers: “Almost all English Bibles which have come into being in the past 125 years are based on the Westcott-Hort texts. The Westcott-Hort texts are frankly spurious texts in that they have been tampered with.” Frankly spurious? Tampered with? Oh, who said so? Peter Ruckman?

Dr. John R. Rice didn’t think so. He said modern translators (he was discussing the American Standard Version at the time) “took advantage of the three great manuscripts – the Sinaiticus, the Vatican, and the Alexandrian manuscripts – which were not available when the King James Version was translated” (emphasis added). He did not consider them “spurious” or “tampered with.” In another book he frankly called these manuscripts “the three best ancient manuscripts” (emphasis added). So Dr. Rice sharply disagreed with Editor Smith.

Are modern versions based on spurious texts, as Editor Smith insists? Ignoring the two secondary definitions of that word spurious (one saying “of illegitimate birth; bastard”; and the other relating to biology), our unabridged office dictionary defines its primary one: “not genuine, authentic, or true; not from the claimed, pretended, or proper source; counterfeit.” Dr. Smith is saying all texts other than on which the KJV are based are illegitimate, counterfeit.

He offers as proof: “… Westcott and Hort changed the New Testament text 9,970 times. They amended! They emended! They deleted! They added things! They literally pilfered the Hebrew and Greek texts.” Since pilfered means, according to the same dictionary, “to steal, esp. in small quantities; practice, or obtain by, petty theft,” we do not see how they could have stolen and at the same time amended, emended, deleted and added, especially when they were based on differing manuscript evidence.

And since the Westcott and Hort text, for example, is based on older manuscripts than the texts on which the KJV is based, wouldn’t this argument indicate the “amended, emended, deleting, adding” was done by the KJV translators and/or those who compiled their texts? How could something prepared ‘before’ have ‘pilfered’ from something not yet available? We are not sure of Smith’s reasoning here.

Dr. Smith says W-H “changed the New Testament text 9,970 times.” He doesn’t state his authority for this claim, but The New International Dictionary of the Bible, Pictorial Edition, Merrill C. Tenney, General Editor, and J. D. Douglas, Revising Editor – both committed evangelical Bible teachers with outstanding reputations as scholars – said about the English Revised Version: “… the Greek text underlying  the revised NR differed in 5,788 readings from that used by the KJV translators – only about one-fourth of these making any material difference in the substance of the text, though none so seriously as to affect major Christian doctrines” (emphasis added). Note how light the differences are.

Dr. Rice preferred the KJV for preaching and writing, but was frank to say he felt the American Standard Version of 1901 was superior to the KJV in the matter of accuracy. He also said of the ASV, “It corrects some mistakes in the King James Version,” calling the latter’s translation of Revelation 22:14 “a very serious mistake.” And he quoted the illustrious Wilbur M. Smith (one of the top book authorities of the twentieth century) as saying about the NASV, “Certainly the most accurate and most revealing translation of the New Testament that we now have.”

While I’m not objecting to it (I would do the same in our magazine), Editor Smith had a fine sermon in this issue by J. H. Melton, a rabid anti-KJVOnly man with whom we had considerable correspondence – and who stated his strong rejection of KJVOnly in his doctrinal books. While I would have to do more research to prove it, my opinion is that others in the same issue – like Dr. S. H. Sutherland, long with Biola College (now University) and Missionary Norman Lewis – would also strongly disagree with Editor Smith.

The Sin of Judging

While this may be incidental to our theme, we noted that Dr. Smith seriously violates Scripture by judging the motives of modern translators when he says, “… in almost all cases when someone produces a new English text, his motivation for doing so is either bias or bucks ... In some instances, it has been both bias and bucks!” He has a right to disagree with the different works, but not the motives of the translators, publishers, or others involved, saying their motives were either “bias” or/and “bucks.”

The title of this article by the editor of The Sword reminds us of a huge volume with a similar title published in 2003 by Ambassador Emerald International (Greenville, SC; Belfast, N. Ireland), God’s Word in our Hands: The Bible Preserved For Us. The General Editor was James B. Williams and the Managing Editor Randolph Shaylor. It is a huge volume of 3 parts, 11 chapters and 429 pages – and if you want to know the truth about God’s Word in your hands, we would recommend this book (reviewed here May-June 2004).

The 11 authors of this work, many of them professors in trusted institutions, were backed by academicians from Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary, Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, Northland Baptist Bible College, Faith Baptist Bible College & Theological Seminary, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, Maranatha Baptist Bible College, Temple Baptist Seminary and Bob Jones University. There is not a liberal, new evangelical or neo orthodox institution in the group; all are reliable, dependable, trustworthy. Yet their position is contrary to Smith’s and in full agreement with the teaching of John R. Rice and the position of the original Sword of the Lord.

It makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

The same publisher released a companion volume aimed more for non-ministers, From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man: A Layman’s Guide to How We Got Our Bible (same editors). In its Glossary section, referring to the manuscripts behind the KJV and the Alexandrian family of texts from which Westcott and Hort worked, these scholars said, “Significant differences between the Alexandrian and Majority texts would comprise no more than a single page in one of today’s printed Greek New Testaments” (emphasis added). In short, the KJVOnly crowd is making mountains out of molehills. Whether they are doing it for “bias and bucks” is not ours to say.

We would also recommend highly the book by Dr. James D. Price, Temple Baptist Theological Seminary (Chattanooga, TN, founded by Dr. Lee Roberson), advertised in this issue, King James Onlyism: A New Sect. If you haven’t already obtained a copy, we urge you to do so at once. Some will be offended, wrongly we believe, by his calling KJVOnly a “new sect.” But get and read the book for yourself and see what you think.

We are accurate in saying, are we not, that Dr. Smith and today’s Sword are anti-John R. Rice in its current position of KJVOnlyism?

Here is the other major disagreement the new editor of The Sword has with the old editor and founder:

Secondary Separation

      Here is a statement from the April 18, 2008 Sword, written by Editor Smith, going after one of his favorite whipping boys, the Southern Baptist Convention. He said he was stating his case on the matter ‘again’:

Is there a defining difference between the fundamental, separated, soul-winning, independent Baptist crowd and the Baptists who align with the Southern Baptist Convention? Should there be mixing and mingling between the pulpits and platforms of the two groups?

Should, for example, an independent pastor bring an SBC pastor to preach in his pulpit? Or are the issues within the SBC of sufficient magnitude that fundamental, independent Baptists should continue now in 2008 to separate from it – as has been the general practice for the better part of one hundred years?

When you see an event advertised where that separation is violated, should you as a Christian refuse to go? If you are a pastor, should you shield your church from it? Or should you, dear pastor, give diligence to advise your folks so they will understand what’s going wrong at the event?

Should you, as pastor, be concerned that the compromised event may build bridges for your people to the Convention? Should you voice your objections to the independent Baptist brethren who have violated your trust in them? Should you stand up publicly if they do not respond?

It is our strong opinion that the answer to all six questions is a resounding and positive yes. I believe it is important for all of us to stand up and speak up, remembering the scriptural rules for so doing (i.e., Matt. 18; Gal.6).

While, by our count there are 10 questions there, not six, what is the answer? Dr. Smith says all of them should be answered in “a resounding and positive yes.”

We will answer that by the ones Dr. Rice had in his Sword pulpit month after month and year after year. He featured sermons by Independent Baptists, Southern Baptists, Lutherans, Assembly of God, Methodists, Brethren, Reformed, Evangelical Free, Presbyterian, Non-denominationalists, Inter-denominationalists, Nazarene – even Anglican and Episcopalian. All, of course, were Bible-believing men who exalted Christ and His Word. Dr. Rice was, indeed, a man who was a companion of all those who feared God. He even had a chapter in the above mentioned book, I Am A Fundamentalist, “Love All Christ’s Other Sheep,” based on John 10:16, where he developed this theme.

In Dr. Smith’s “scriptural rules” that he gives for supporting secondary separation, he merely lists “Matt. 18” without saying what in that passage he thinks teaches his view. We doubt he was referencing “whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me,” or, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” or, “shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?” Seriously, the only thing in Matthew 18 he could have possibly been referencing, in our judgment, was instruction about discipline in the local church. And that doesn’t have any more to do with secondary separation than the cow jumping over the moon!

The other passage he offered was “Gal.6” and, again, he was not specific. Once again we can only speculate, but we doubt it was “if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness,” or, “if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself,” or, “as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men.” We know of nothing in Galatians 6 teaching secondary separation.

We can, however, tell you how and why Dr. Rice so opposed it throughout his long, fruitful and blessed ministry. His opposition was based on the command in Psalm 119:63, that those of us close to him heard him quote as his position so many, many times: “I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.” That is why he invited Independent Baptists, Southern Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Assembly of God, Brethren, Lutherans, Salvation Army, those without any denominational affiliation, and even Anglicans, to his Sword pulpit to preach their messages.

      In one book he wrote, “Born-again, Bible-believing Christians should work together and have fellowship whenever they can do so without hurtful division and strife,” and he added, “I believe this teaching is very clear in the Bible.”

As for inviting SBC men to his Sword pulpit, a matter that so distresses Dr. Smith, he welcomed them with open arms: Dr. W. A. Criswell, Dr. Joe Henry Hankins, Dr. Jesse Hendley, Dr. Herschel Ford, Dr. Robert G. Lee, Hyman Appelman – all of whom he considered personal friends. And, unlike Dr. Hutson, he didn’t wait until they were dead to do so.

He was not a 5-point Calvinist, but he invited to his pulpit men who were, such as Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He did not believe in sprinkling babies and calling it baptism – or in covenant theology – but he invited to his pulpit men like Oswald J. Smith and Carl McIntire who did. He was against “saved today, lost tomorrow” theology, but he had in his Sword pulpit men like C. M. Ward, national speaker on the Assembly of God radio broadcast. He was against formalism, sprinkling babies and state-supported churches financed through the taxation of non-members, but he printed sermons by Bishop J. C. Ryle, who had been prominent in the Church of England.

There is a lot more that we could say about how John R. Rice despised what is called “secondary separation,” but we think we have said enough to prove the point, namely: Dr. Smith and today’s Sword are anti-John R. Rice in its current position of secondary separation.

Old-time Sword fans probably wonder why the top of every issue doesn’t say something like: Founded by the late John R. Rice (1895-1980). It almost seems that the current leadership wants to disassociate itself from its roots. It is on the masthead inside the paper (Dr. John R. Rice, Founder-Editor 1934-1980) and underneath (Dr. Curtis Hutson, Pres.-Editor 1980-1995), but that is in an inconspicuous place where few readers would notice it. (It was under the latter’s leadership, incidentally, that the slide in these areas we are discussing commenced.) We went through the 20 pages of this issue and did not see a single one of the more than 200 books and booklets Dr. Rice wrote advertised. (We recall when he called a special meeting of board members to plead with them to keep all his titles in print – not just the ones they could make money on.)

Incidentally, Dr. Hutson, as noted above, invited SBC men to his Sword pulpit as well: W. A. Criswell, Robert G. Lee, Joe Henry Hankins – all the great SBC old-timers. His defense for so doing was unique: they were deceased and so, now in Heaven, they were straightened out on their theology and associations. Ipso facto: all a good SBC preacher had to do was die and Dr. Hutson would print his sermons! The latter would also speak in certain SBC churches, but he had an excuse for doing that, too.

Just a decade before Dr. Rice’s Homegoing the Sword’s average circulation was over 200,000 a week, but today it is just a shadow of that and published only half as often. And much of that ‘shadow’ is advertising, easily 50% of the paper in the copy we saw.

Perhaps the Sword’s decline is because it is not really in the mold of Dr. Rice’s Sword of the Lord any more. Do you suppose?

This article is not intended to settle either the version problem (you might see our Bible Translations booklet for help on that, one that Dr. Rice first published in The Sword and then in booklet form, available from our Raleigh office for $2, postage paid) or the secondary separation issue. It is merely intended to show how anti-John R. Rice The Sword of the Lord has become. As noted above, the downswing started under Rice’s successor, Curtis Hutson, and has picked up momentum under Shelton Smith. We are saddened by it.

And we are not alone. You may recall that the family of Dr. Rice wrote an open letter to Dr. Smith a few years back, which we published, lamenting how the paper had abandoned their father’s positions, the dynamic and godly founder of The Sword. They suggested to Dr. Smith that he could teach and preach all he wished in disagreement with their dad, but the honest thing to do would be to resign as editor of The Sword and start his own paper.

He apparently doesn’t plan to do so.