"Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."
--Hebrews 10:38 KJV
Note the words in italics: what happens if you try to read the verse without them?
"Now the just shall live by faith: but if draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."
Clearly, something is missing here. What is it? The singular generic pronoun 'he.'
"Now the just shall live by faith: but if he draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."
But wait! protests the Calvinist. A justified person can't lose his salvation, so how could God say that He would have no pleasure in him if he draws back? Well, before I come down to hard on the KJV here, let's see if the NIV managed to escape Calvinist bias:
“But my righteous[Some early manuscripts But the righteous]one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”[Hab. 2:4 (see Septuagint)]
Oh, boy. Rather than hiding their bias in an italicized phrase, the CBT changed the personal pronout outright, obscuring the actual meaning even more.
Here is a quick rundown of the English versions WITHOUT a Calvinist bias (ie, they make 'just' or 'righteous' the antecedent:
ASV But my righteous one shall live by faith: And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him.
AMP
But My righteous one [the one justified by faith] shall live by faith [respecting man’s relationship to God and trusting Him]; And if he draws back [shrinking in fear], My soul has no delight in him.
CJB But the person who is righteous will live his life by trusting, and if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.
ESV
but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
HCSB But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him.
Some versions are even able to play around with gender and number without making the one who turns back a different category than the just:
GNT My righteous people, however, will believe and live; but if any of them turns back, I will not be pleased with them.
But it looks like ALL translations based on the TR--starting with that bastion of Calvinist translation, the Geneva Bible--twist the text to separate the one who lives by faith from the one who turns away. An intersting exception is Young's Literal Translation, which makes the separation but blames it on being two separate quotes from the Old Testament:
and `the righteous by faith shall live,' and `if he may draw back, My soul hath no pleasure in him,'
Green's Literal Translation goes one step further, cutting the NT verse into THREE OT quotes, with reciepts:
"But the just shall live by faith;" "and if he draws back," "My soul is not pleased in him." Hab. 2:4; Zeph. 1:6; Mal. 1:10
The problem with that third reference, though, is that it switches the person from second to third--Green should have put the end quotes after "pleased."
Now, the theme of drawing back is a big one in Hebrews, with five different passages warning of the danger of drawing back:
Hebrews 2:1-4 — Warning against drifting away from the message of salvation.
Hebrews 3:7–4:13 — Warning against unbelief and failing to enter God's rest (drawing from Psalm 95 and the wilderness generation).
Hebrews 5:11–6:12 (with the core warning in 6:4-8) — Warning against falling away after receiving enlightenment and spiritual privileges.
Hebrews 10:19-39 (especially 10:26-31) — Warning against willful sin and the terrifying prospect of judgment.
Hebrews 12:14-29 — Warning against refusing God's voice and failing to receive the unshakable kingdom.
Calvinists have their work cut out for them, proving in each of the five cases that these warnings don't apply to anyone that God has already justified. But it appears they needed a little help in this fourth passage, cutting the link between the just person and the one that draws back--a link so obviouls that dozens of English Versions had translators who could see it, and weren't ashamed to admit it. It's odd that the CBT, in cutting themselves loose from a lot of the language of the KJV, were unable to do what so many other modern Bible Version editors have done, and cut themselves free from its Calvinist bias as well.
