Spurgeon on texts in the KJV added by Legalists (Romams 8:1)
“…who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
You who have the Revised New Testament. Do you see this sentence there? To your surprise it is omitted and very rightly so. The most learned men assure us that it is no part of the original text. I cannot, just now, go into the reasons for this conclusion, but they are very good and solid. The oldest copies are without it—the versions do not sustain it and the fathers who quoted abundance of Scripture do not quote this sentence!
We must admit that it is an opinion inserted in later copies by some penman who was wise enough, in his own conceit, to think that he could mend the Bible!
Do you ask me, “How did it get into the text?” Remember that there always have been many divines who have been afraid of the Doctrine of free Justification.They have been half afraid that sinners should get comfort by faith and should not see the necessity of a change of life. They have questioned the wisdom of ascribing salvation wholly to a man’s being in Christ and so they have guarded the more open passages whenever they have seen a chance of so doing. In so doing they stated Truth, but they stated it out of season and from motives which were unsound.
Probably the sentence now before us was put in and allowed to remain, by general consent, in order that the great Truth of the non-condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus might be guarded from that Antinomian tendency which would separate faith from good works. But the fear was groundless and the tampering with Scripture was unjustifiable.
We are greatly obliged to our revisers for leaving out the sentence, since it should not be there and, without it, the Doctrine of Justification in Christ is made more clear than in the Authorized Version.
In the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, service of the same kind is most properly rendered, for instead of, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life,” the Revisers have given us a more accurate text—“Blessed are they that wash their robes.”
In these two cases we have proof that the more nearly the text of Scripture is restored to its original purity, the more clearly will the doctrines of Grace be set forth in it. The more we get back to true Scripture, the more shall we escape all interference with the complete and perfect salvation which comes of our being in Christ.
-Charles Spurgeon