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Cover
Preface
The Bible
Bible Interpretation
The Trinity
Jesus is God
Jesus
Christian Women
Marriage
Controversies
Original Sin
Calvinism
Calvinism to Universalism
Universalism
Conditionalism
Annihilationism
Dispensationalism
Church Councils
Eastern Orthodoxy
Hebrew Roots
Paul and the Karaites
Prophecy
Preterism
The Rapture
Science
Biblical Cosmology
Evolution
Non-Christian Beliefs
Atheism
Gnosticism
Islam
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Mormonism
Preface
There are various ways to study the Bible: by word, verse, chapter,
book, or topic. This book on topical Bible studies will provide
answers to questions we encounter every day. But no topical study
is complete without an explanation of how to be reconciled to God. If
the Bible is true and Jesus really is God in the flesh who died for our
rebellion against him and then rose again, why should it matter to
us? And what was that all about, anyway?
If anyone belongs to Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone and the
new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ. He
gave us this message to pass on: that through Christ, God was reconciling the world
to himself, not counting people’s sins against them. So we are Christ’s ambassadors,
as though God were making his appeal through us. We plead with you on
Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin
in our place, to make us righteous before God. (2 Cor. 5:17-21)
That’s the gospel (good news), the message of salvation, the way to
heaven: Be reconciled to God by trusting Jesus Christ. And
accepting Jesus by faith is the only way that can happen. To put
your faith in someone is to have a deep conviction about them, to
“put all your weight” on them. You can’t just say the words, “I believe
Jesus is God who died for us and rose again”, you have to accept
this as a personal conviction. You don’t just believe about him, you
believe in him. You want to be reconciled to God.
Once you have as a personal conviction that Jesus is God who died
and rose again to reconcile you, you are guaranteed to “go to
heaven” after this life. Yes, guaranteed!
Now this God is the one who has given us the Spirit as a down payment. (2 Cor. 5:5)
When you heard the true Word, the good news of your salvation, you too were
sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, the down payment guaranteeing our
inheritance. Praise and honor to him! (Eph. 1:13-15)
By the grace of God you have been saved through faith. This is a gift from God, not
something you earned, so no one can boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
A worker’s wages aren’t considered a gift, but rather payment owed for work we did.
Instead, we simply trust in the One who made ungodly people righteous; our faith is
what clears us of all charges. (Rom. 4:4-5)
So what should we say in response to all that? Should we keep sinning so God will be
even more gracious? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in
it? Ridiculous! You just don’t get it. Whoever is immersed into Christ Jesus is
immersed into his death, and we were buried along with him as well. Just as by the
grace of God he was raised from the dead, we too will walk with him in a new
life. (Rom. 6:1-4)
We wouldn’t dream of living a life that angers or insults a person we
claim to have reconciled with, so neither should we do this to God.
This isn’t about meeting some minimal requirement to buy our way
into eternal happiness, but an honest desire to be reconciled to God;
it’s all about the relationship. We have this guarantee of eternal
happiness because of the love of God for all the world (John 3:16),
so love is the “meat” of that relationship.
Naturally, the next thing to do is to find out more about God, to know
what pleases him and what does not. That means studying the Bible
and getting instruction from the spiritually mature, who can be
recognized by how well they model the life of Christ and the disciples
He chose to write the Bible. Good deeds will follow from the truly
transformed life. They can be faked by the lost, and the saved are
certainly spiritually “sick” if they have not changed or have fallen
back into a life of sin. But we are to focus on our own spiritual
health, not on whether others meet our personal level of spirituality.
Spiritual maturity is not a means to a high position of rule, but a low
position of service, of being an example to others, of slowly
becoming like our Master and Savior. One very important factor in
our spiritual growth is to hang around with other believers (Heb.
10:24-25). And this is the only way we can use the spiritual gifts God
gives each believer (1 Cor. 12:7), since their purpose is to help other
believers and be helped in turn by them.
Here is a list of all the changes that take place spiritually when we
place faith in Jesus. It’s good to refer to whenever doubts may arise,
since every one of them would have to be undone in order for
us to lose our salvation. “I write these things to you who believe in
the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have
eternal life.” (1 John 5:13)
Introduction
Some say that since all gods have similiarities then all gods are the
same. But that’s like saying that since housecats and lions have
similarities, then housecats are lions (see formal fallacies, affirming
the consequent). It’s the differences that matter most, not the
similarities. So when the characteristics of various deities conflict, it’s
impossible for them all to be identical. We will see the ways in which
the Christian faith differs from all others, by examining the following
points:
For a sample of how the Bible goes out of its way to reference
people and events its contemporaries could examine, take a quick
look at this outline of the life of Jesus. People who invent fictional
heroes don’t do things like that. Now let’s look at what the Bible itself
says about witnesses and evidence:
Acts 1:8, 2:32, 3:15, 4:20, 5:32, 10:38-41, 13:31, 1 Cor. 15:6
John 3:11, 1 Tim. 3:16, 2 Tim. 2:2, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:3
How many people saw what Mohammad claimed to have seen? The
same question for Joseph Smith of Mormonism, and there are many
similarities between those two men. How many of their enemies
saw miraculous healings? How many of those enemies wanted to kill
the healer because he was stealing their popularity (John 11:45-50,
12:9-10)?
The scriptures showing this unique teaching of our faith are John
1:1-4, 14, Col. 1:15-20, John 14:9, Phil. 2:5-11, and Rom. 8:3.
Instead of making people sacrifice for God, he sacrificed himself for
us, as shown in Rom. 3:25, 5:8, 1 Cor. 5:7, Eph. 5:2, Heb. 7:27,
9:26-28, 10:12, 1 John 2:2, and 4:10. These scriptures show that
Jesus’ death proved he is God: Mat. 26:28, Heb. 9:20, and 16-17.
Let’s express this as a syllogism (deductive reasoning):
The idea that we would need God to stoop down to help us bruises
egos, and some jump to the ridiculous conclusion that Christians just
sit around and do nothing while we wait for Jesus to return and clean
house. But the fact is that Jesus did for us what we could never do
for ourselves, and that being God didn’t stop him from lowering
himself to our level to lift us up. No other alleged god is believed to
have done such a thing. This is not the same as any god
temporarily manifesting in human form; it is God actually taking on
human nature and becoming one of us, then sacrificing himself for
us though he had no obligation to do so.
The implications of the dual nature of Jesus are covered in the next
two points.
Gifts and wages are mutually exclusive; we can’t earn a gift. Jesus
illustrated this in his parables of the wineskins and cloths; the old
(law) and new (grace) cannot be mixed. Adoption has nothing to do
with how good we’ve been or what we might be able to do for the
one adopting us; it’s about how much we’re loved. Nothing else
matters but whether or not we accept the offer and want to be a part
of a new family, instead of staying in the orphanage. Neither can we
take it by force or buy it with our own efforts; we can only accept it in
humble gratitude, or reject it in angry pride. Name another faith or
spiritual perspective that comes close to that.
If anyone is united with the Anointed One, they’re a new creation; the old one has
passed away and become something completely new! Yet it all comes from God, the
one who made this possible and has given us the assignment of bringing people to
him. It was through the Anointed One that God reconciled the world to himself,
meaning he would no longer hold their sins against them. This is the message he
gave us; we’re the Anointed One’s representatives and God pleads through us. So
we’re speaking for him when we plead with you to be reconciled to God. This one
who never sinned was made to be a sin offering on our behalf, so that because of
him we can be in a right relationship with God.
The Bible
Now it should also be pointed out that the Bible does not violate any
known, proved, valid scientific laws in its presentation of creation. Of
course miracles, by definition, do violate those laws, but if such
events are confirmed by reliable witnesses, we can’t just dismiss
them with the wave of a hand. As Sherlock Holmes put it, “when you
have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth.” ˜Sherlock Holmes Quotations,
(1890) Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four, ch. 6 (Doubleday p.
111)
Manuscript Evidence
Take a look at this source. On the part about measuring layers of
ink, ask yourself these questions: Who goes to this much effort to
examine a document? Who puts any other writings to such extreme
tests? For further documentation we’ll be referring sometimes to this
source. Notice that several links are to refutations of claims that
Christianity plagiarized or adopted earlier pagan beliefs. So the Bible
is, at the very least, much more supported by objective evidence
than any other ancient text. It’s quite ironic when critics try to cite
older documents to debunk it, and they uncritically accept those
documents as true and accurate.
As for the Old Testament, these reliable New Testament writers, and
Jesus of course, quoted often from it as true and accurate, in spite
of the fact that they were quoting the Septuagint (LXX), the early
translation of scripture into Greek. You might also want to check this
source.
Extra-Biblical Evidence
As for alignment with secular history, the evidence presented so far
leaves little doubt that without references to the supernatural, no
one would question the Bible’s accuracy or trustworthiness— which
indicates philosophical bias. Consider this article and another article
from History.com. These are primarily about historical evidence for
Jesus, but the first one includes a link for an earlier document on
people named in the Old Testament. So on what basis does anyone
reject the Bible as a historical source in its own right? We need to
turn a critical eye to secular history as well. Take a look at this video
and these links, which also present very interesting evidence that
there was tampering with the ages of some of the people before the
Flood in the Bible:
Were the Pyramids Built Before the Flood? (Masoretic Text vs.
Original Hebrew)
LXX timeline from Adam to Abraham
LXX timeline from Abraham to Moses
Dates for people and events from Abraham forward are easier to
establish, though we have to remember that precise dates by our
standards wouldn’t be the norm until much later. As to the charge
that the Bible as history is unreliable because of alleged bias, that
charge can be made more easily against the Bible’s critics. For
example, in this source we see quotes from Sir William Ramsay,
who was quite convinced that the Bible was unreliable— until he did
his own investigation rather than relying on what his professors and
collegues had told him.
Conclusion
We can’t leave this topic without a hat-tip to the amazing Robert
Wilson:
To clarify, this is not saying that the Bible contains no allegories. But
some insist that the Bible is all allegory. Rather than secondary
meanings, the allegorists claim there is no literal meaning at all.
An example of an allegorical book would be Orwell’s Animal Farm, a
story about rebellious farm animals that’s really about the Bolshevik
Revolution. But to say the Bible is never to be taken literally but
rather always about some spiritual principle, is to reduce the Bible
to fiction, whether there’s a “real” meaning behind it or not.
It should also be pointed out that many figures of speech have been
mistaken for doctrine or narrative. There are some examples here of
what are called idioms. We use idioms all the time, such as “cough
up the money” to mean “pay grudgingly”, and the ancients were no
exception. Another misunderstood figure of speech is the idiom of
permission.
The whole time from the third hour to the sixth, that is, from nine to twelve, was
called the third hour; and the whole intervening time from the sixth to the ninth,
that is, from twelve to three, is called the sixth hour. John does not say it was the
sixth hour, but about or near the sixth hour. So when he says about the sixth hour,
and Mark the third hour, we are to understand that Mark takes the whole time of
the third hour, from nine to twelve, and that John puts it near twelve. So in either
case our Lord was sentenced between the hours of nine and twelve.
The Feast of Firstfruits (the first day of the week following Passover
per Lev. 23:9-16), began a seven-week festival called the Feast of
Weeks (Lev. 23:15-22). Firstfruits was known as “one/first of the
Sabbaths,” and this phrase in Greek is imprecisely rendered “the
first day of the week” in most Bibles. The Day of Pentecost was a
feast marking the final day of the final week.
Conclusion
Are many Christians willing to do the work needed for accurate Bible
interpretation? Sadly, no. This is partially why there are so many
denominations, translations, variations in theology, and bitter feuds.
Sincere, studied, dedicated people can disagree strongly, because
we’re all flawed, and the day we all humble ourselves enough to
admit that, is the day communication can improve. Even so, there
will always be strong differences in Bible interpretation, until God
Himself returns to set us all straight. It may well be that God’s
purpose in allowing us to disagree is not to see who gets it right, but
to see who behaves with grace and humility with those we believe to
be wrong.
Bible Language and Canon
This study will provide data from which people can make informed
judgments of the Bible’s content. There’s no point in debating the
meaning of a text before determining what words are in it. When
people argue over the meaning of various parts of the Bible, they
typically base these arguments on translations. But as even the KJV
translators put it,
the very meanest translation of the Bible in English… containeth the Word of God,
nay, is the Word of God. (1611 KJV The Translators To The Reader, sec. 13-1)
Language
As far as anyone can reasonably prove, the Bible was written
originally in Hebrew, Greek, and a smattering of Aramaic. What most
know as the Old Testament was first written in Paleo-Hebrew (see
ancient alphabets). There’s nothing nefarious or sneaky about any of
this; it’s just how languages and alphabets change over time. So the
time of the writing is very important to know. Yet it seems that Bible
skeptics only consider such details important for non-Biblical writings
such as the Sumerian Tablets. No skepticism is aimed at those;
they’re just blindly accepted as ancient and true.
Tampering
The Masoretic Text or MT, from which most Old Testaments have
been translated, was written during the 10th-11th centuries AD, but it
differed little from the Dead Sea scrolls written centuries earlier.
However, it introduced vowel pointing, which compensates for the
lack of vowels in the original alphabet. Yet this very addition became
a commentary as much as a translation, since they could
significantly change the meanings of words without technically
altering the words inspired by God. This was very sneaky and
subversive, but it didn’t stop with the Hebrew scribes and sages.
More about that shortly.
Now this MT differed from the LXX and quotations by historians, and
it shows evidence of altering and obfuscating Messianic prophecies
to counter Christian claims. We should also be aware that the
Masoretes were formerly called Talmudists. An example of
tampering can be seen here (lessons (621-622).
But what of the ongoing tampering? Please see this and this (under
Part 1 “From a review of Epp’s book”) for evidence of more modern
tampering with the New Testament. Footnote 4 is about a woman
named Junia who was held in high regard by the apostle Paul in
Rom. 16:7. Junia was changed to Junias (masculine) without any
manuscript support. The deliberate error was quietly corrected
decades later, again without the required attestation. Keep in mind
this is the text from which all translations were made, so the error
was multiplied in many languages for many years.
Now look at the entry for the Greek word toxon in Strong’s
Exhaustive Concordance as opposed to the Mounce Greek
dictionary. Notice that if you click on the base word tikto, it means
“to beget, bring forth”; how did anyone get “apparently the simplest
fabric” from that? It all has to do with something bent in an arc, as is
the case for the shape of a pregnant belly, or a stick bent into a bow
for shooting arrows.
As for original language “text families” for the New Testament,
please see this video. The gist of it is that no point of doctrine rests
on a disputed reading among the various Greek texts, and that no
text families omit verses on ideological grounds. Charges that
they did so must be substantiated and not merely presumed or
suspected, or based on personal prejudice. Every criticism against
them has come from either ignorance or misunderstanding of this
highly technical topic. God preserves the scriptures through many
manuscripts in many languages and places, “the preponderance of
evidence”. And when that tactic fails, critics of modern translations
resort to personal attacks on those who either assembled or copied
the documents.
In the next section we will see how a comma and a paragraph break
can completely reverse the meaning of a passage. Keep in mind
that the earliest manuscripts were giant walls of text: all caps, no
punctuation, no paragraph breaks, no verse and chapter numbers.
But the point here about language is that whether by punctuation,
omission, addition, or formatting, both translators and the keepers of
the earliest manuscripts have dared to alter the Word of God on
technicalities. Yet we could never have discovered their tampering
without objective evidence and consistent application of standards.
We must be vigilant in overseeing the “scribes and Pharisees” who
invalidate the Word of God with their traditions (Mark 7:6-13). There
is also material here and here for those concerned about the
debunked JEDP theory of authorship.
But to find out what God approves we need to look especially at the
LXX, which you’ll recall from the section on Language was what
Jesus himself quoted as scripture. So what approach did those
translators use? The short answer is “It depends upon whom you
ask.” According to Greek/Latin forum, it was likely a formal
equivalence translation, which weighs meaning more heavily than a
strict literalism (a rigid mechanical approach). We see this in specific
passages such as Gen. 1:1, where the Hebrew has Elohim and the
Greek has Theos. Both were generic terms for deity in their
respective languages and cultures. Had the LXX translators used
strict literalism, they would have transliterated Elohim into roughly
equivalent Greek characters, as they would any other formal name.
Now there is still one bias that has cut across time and culture and is
found in practically all translations at the same spots: the relegation
of women to secondary status. To even point this out is to be labeled
what we might call “the Christian F-word”, feminist, which has
changed in meaning from simply acknowledging that women are
human beings, to all sorts of twisted gender perversion and leftist
political ideology. It’s a trigger word that shuts down all
communication and rational discussion.
Remember the section on Tampering about how a comma and a
paragraph break can completely reverse the meaning of a passage?
The most notorious of those is on this topic, and it’s found in Eph.
5:18-33 (see this image). Either support/submission is mutual (to
each other), or it’s some to others; it can’t be both. A book and
commentary are availble for further study. But the point here is that
punctuation and formatting alone can materially affect the
meaning of a passage and promote any agenda desired by the
translators. This is why it’s vital to consult the original language text
instead of relying upon translations.
Canon
First, the short version: If a document on spiritual matters was
written by or quoted from a prophet or apostle, it qualifies to be in
the Bible canon. So since:
then documents from sources during those times are ineligible. Now
before we look at the long version, understand that those long
documents are the kind of research that real truth seekers must
read if they consider themselves qualified to critique the Bible canon.
The canon is not closed because some council or leader decided it,
but because the qualifications for speaking with divine authority can
no longer be met.
1. Tekton Apologetics
2. Christian Thinktank
3. The Intertestamental Period, esp. para. 3 and 4 under “The
Literature of the Intertestamental Period”
Conclusion
As Mark Twain is alleged to have said (though for anti-theistic
reasons), “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that
bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” Objections to the
content of the Bible stem largely from an a priori rejection of its
teachings, not from lack of evidence or standards. For whatever
reasons, God has chosen to put his words into the hands of us “jars
of clay” (2 Cor. 4:7-9), despite our imperfections.
Introduction
Claims of Bible contradictions are nothing new. There are even
entire websites dedicated to finding them, such as the Skeptic’s
Annotated Bible It is available at this site dedicated to refuting it, so
both can be seen at the same time. The SAB confuses internal and
external contradictions, and it’s more an atheist / evolutionist rant
than purely about alleged contradictions. It really is pathetic that
anyone would devote so much of their time to obsess over what
they believe is fiction.
Another view argues that God extended grace to them. Eve didn’t
drop dead right then and there, and Adam saw this and decided to
believe the serpent as well. God chose instead to confront them and
announce a plan for redemption. There are other instances in
scripture where God relents from his plans, such as after the people
of Ninevah repented and were not destroyed, even though God had
Jonah tell them they would. In fact, Jonah tried to run from God
precisely because he knew God might show them mercy (Jonah
3:10-4:2).
We should also point out that a similar issue pertains to Gen. 1:1,
since that in itself introduces the rest of the chapter. In other words,
it’s the title, and the narrative begins in vs. 2. Too many people,
even Christians, try to make an entire history between 1:1 and 1:2,
such as that there was a first creation that “became” void and empty
and had to be redone. This is why study of the context and habits of
ANE writers is so vital— and why lazy critics are so easily debunked.
Light was created before the sun, so plants needing light before the
sun was not an issue. (The actual first thing created was water;
compare Gen. 1:2 and 2 Peter 3:5.) As for animals being brought to
Adam in Gen. 2:19, nothing in the text requires that the animals
were created after Adam. Even if the skeptic insists that “formed”
happened just then, the fact remains that Gen. 2 shows no concern
with creation order, as argued also at this Apolgetics Press article.
Conclusion
In every case where contradiction is claimed, a careful study and
attention to detail show no such thing. The real issue is why, among
all the world’s sacred texts, only the Bible gets so much scrutiny,
from so many people, for so many generations, in spite of how
many other texts and beliefs are well known to the skeptics, who
would never allow themselves or their writings to be held to the
same standards.
The Nature of God
The Father and Son are one God— John 1:1, 18, John 10:30,
John 17:21-23, Phil. 2:6, Col. 1:15-20, Heb. 1:3
All three are the one Creator— Gen. 1:2, Deut. 32:6, Col. 1:15-
20
The Father and Spirit conceived the incarnate Son— Mat. 1:18,
Luke 1:35
Jesus raised himself from the dead— John 2:19-21
God raised Jesus from the dead— Acts 2:24
The Father raised Jesus from the dead— Gal. 1:1
The Son is God and became human— Phil. 2:5-11
The Son and Father cannot be separated— 1 John 2:23
The Diversity of the Persons
(against modalism, meaning one God with three roles or
manifestations)
The Holy Spirit is referred to as “she” in the Hebrew, and “it ” in the
Greek. But regardless of the grammatical gender of pronouns, it is
clear from the totality of scripture that the Holy Spirit is not a mere
force but is in fact a Person of the Trinity just as much as the Father
and Son. But just as clearly, the Holy Spirit is not gendered, just as
the Father is not gendered (Num. 23:19, John 4:24). Though God is
described as having body parts in various passages, these are
anthropomorphisms (ways to describe in human terms). Only Jesus
in his incarnation is gendered (Phil. 2:5-11), since he alone has the
dual nature of both God and human.
Conclusion
There is one God, composed of three Persons, each of which is fully
God and not a physical or gendered entity. Jesus alone has a dual
nature as both divine and human, the latter of which was physical
and gendered at his incarnation. Critics of this view, whether
believers or unbelievers, have to ignore or reinterpret all of these
passages in order to claim otherwise.
God the Father
In Christian theology there is very little controversy about the nature
of God as regards “the Father”, the eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing
Creator. Yet the very word “Father” indicates a change of
relationship at a point in time (see Heb. 1:5,5), since parents
must have existed prior to their children. Thus terms such as
“eternal Father” or “eternal Son(ship)” are oxymorons on the order
of “original copy” or “true lies”. The eternal existence of God in three
Persons does not, and could not, mean that a father/son relationship
was also eternal.
There are other -isms than these of course, but it demonstrates the
fact that this debate has been raging ever since the apostles died.
With that being the case, we shouldn’t think that we’ll settle the
dispute any time soon. What we can do is present our arguments
and let the readers weigh the evidence for themselves, paying
careful attention to whether a claim can be ruled out. I would also
ask the readers to weigh between that which is explicitly stated, and
that which is only implicit. Ockham’s Razor is a good guide on any
complex or controversial topic. Or as it was put by Dr. David L.
Cooper (1886-1965), founder of The Biblical Research Society,
When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense;
therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the
facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic
and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.
This isn’t a special rule for the Bible; it’s just good reading
comprehension.
Look also at Isaiah 9:6, where the Son is called the Everlasting
Father and the Mighty God. To invoke metaphor is to beg the
question, as is the idea that these titles are merely honorary. The
same holds true for Deut. 32:15, Isaiah 43:11, and Hosea 13:4,
which say that God is the only Savior.
Next take a look at Mt. 22:41-46, where Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1
and asks the Pharisees how the Messiah could merely be a
descendant of David. They were stumped— which was no easy
task, if you know anything about the Pharisees. But see also Ps.
110:4, which identifies this “Lord” as an eternal priest in the order of
Melchizedek, a priesthood not part of the line of Aaron and Levi. For
anyone interested, there’s much more about this priesthood in Heb.
chapters 5-7, and of course Gen. 14:18-20.
Visibility
An often-overlooked factor in this debate is the matter of
appearances or visibility of God. As you study some of the pertinent
passages, 1 Cor. 10:1-4, Col. 1:15-20, and Col. 2:9, you see that
any time God “appears” it must be Jesus. This includes all Old
Testament theophanies.
A good man
Would a mere “good man” or “not God” say the words in these
references? Take a look at Mark 2:5-7, Mark 14:61-64, John 2:19-
21, John 8:23-24,58-59, John 14:6-9, John 10:28-33, Rev. 1:8, Rev.
21:6, and Rev. 22:13,16. It should be very clear that no mere good
man could utter those words. In addition to those, we have the clear
declarations given in these passages: Mat. 1:23, John 1:1-5,14,29-
30,45, John 17:5, John 20:28, Phil. 2:6-7, and Heb. 1:2-10. Note
also that both Mat. 2:2 and Rev. 19:10 use the word for worship
(G4352 προσκυνεω). It was directed at Jesus as a baby, and when
John tried to direct it to the angel in Rev. he was told it was only for
God.
This explains how Jesus could both be God and pray to God. Now
as you also check Heb. 2:17, Acts 13:33, Heb. 5:5, and 1 Cor. 2:7-8,
what other explanation can be given for all this? It says that Jesus
had to become like us in every way. And since one cannot become
what one already is, “Today I have become your Father” means
there was an unprecedented event that happened at a point in time,
a colossal change. In fact, we see that this Jesus was “the Lord of
Glory” who would not have been crucified if this had not been kept
hidden from the rulers of this age. How could attributes that hadn’t
changed from eternity past have been kept hidden?
Conclusion
Arguments against the deity of Christ have failed to demonstrate
that it can be ruled out, given that the many passages cited here
must all be dismissed as meaning something other than what they
say. The argument against the deity of Christ relies heavily upon
implication to change explicit statements affirming his deity into mere
euphemisms.
The clincher is that only God could enact the New Covenant, and
only by proving his death. A mere good man, or especially a being
who is neither human nor divine, could never be the sacrifice for sin
— the Redeemer, the Mediator, the Savior. Only God can be those
things, and Jesus is those things. It can’t be stated any clearer or
simpler than this:
Let’s begin with the issue of pronouns. The Holy Spirit is referred to
as “she” in the Hebrew text and “it” in the Greek. The only instance
where a masculine pronoun is used is in John 15:26, and only
because the noun it describes is The Advocate or Comforter, which
is a masculine noun. Grammatical gender has no necessary
correlation with biological gender; it’s much the way we might refer
to a boat as “she”.
The elders were nothing like the traditional corporate structure with
its CEO (head/lead pastor or priest), board of directors (assistant
pastors, bishops, etc.), managers (deacons), and workers (lay
persons); a Body isn’t described in such terms. Rather, we are all
parts working together in our unique ways (1 Cor. 12:4-30), a Body
with only one Head. All parts have direct access to the Head without
going through a chain of command, as if the foot needs the elbow to
intercede for it.
These elders had no special office or function above others; they
were not required to officiate over fellowship, baptisms, weddings,
funerals, or discipline. You’ll notice in 1 Cor. 5 that it was the entire
community of believers, not just a board of elders or chief elder
(which didn’t exist anyway), who was charged with administering
discipline against a believer living in sin.
But what were the elders, then? They were protectors and mentors,
examples of maturity and teachers of scripture, and there was a
group of them for each congregation. The last reference in the list
above bears this out via a warning: After the Apostles all passed
away, false teachers would rise up from among them and ravage the
community of believers with false teachings and lust for authority.
Conclusion
We are a Body of equal but distinct parts, distinguished not by our
flesh or social standing (Gal. 3:28) but by the gifting of the Holy
Spirit. Our purpose is not to “practice religion” but to model the ideal
community and show the world what it means to be reconciled with
our Creator. If we are to own buildings, they should be facilities for
caring for each other: apartments, service centers, clinics, childcare,
job training, etc. We cannot go to church, because we are the
church.
Spiritual Birth and Growth
2 Cor. 5:17-21 Whoever is united with Christ is a new creation; the original has
passed away and become something completely new! Yet it all comes from God, the
one who reconciled us to himself by means of Christ and commissioned us to this
service. God reconciled the world to himself through Christ, not holding their sins
against them, and gave us the message of reconciliation. That means we are Christ’s
representatives and God pleads through us. So, on behalf of Christ, we plead with
you to be reconciled to God! For this one who knew no sin was made to be Sin for
our sakes, so that because of him we can become right with God.
2 Cor. 5:5 Yet the same God who put this longing inside of us also gave us the Spirit
as a down payment.
Eph. 1:13-14 Likewise for you who heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your
salvation. You believed and were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the
down payment that guarantees our inheritance. Praise and honor to him!
Eph. 2:8-9 Because of God’s favor you have been saved through faith. This is all a
gift of God, not something you did, so nobody can brag.
Rom. 4:4-5 A worker’s wages are not considered a gift but a debt. In contrast, the
one cleared of all charges is the one who does not work but rather trusts in the One
who justifies the ungodly.
Salvation is like adoption. We were all born into this “orphanage” and
God offers to make us his legal heirs, with the promise of taking us
to live in his fabulous mansion. Yet adoption is more than a change
of address; it’s a change of relationship. God wants us to accept
him, not just his house or possessions, and be part of his family.
This offer can’t be given by force, trickery, fear, or deception, and it
can’t be lost or given away.
Growth
Birth is not the end but the beginning. A baby who never grows has
a serious problem but is born nonetheless. Yet this isn’t a license to
sin:
Rom. 6:1-4 What should we conclude from that: that we should keep on sinning so
that God’s favor will keep increasing? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin
still live in it? Ridiculous! You don’t seem to understand that those who are
immersed into Christ Jesus are immersed into his death. And just as we were buried
together with him through immersion into his death, so also, just as Christ was
raised from the dead through the favor of the Father, we will keep pace with him in
a new life.
Good deeds will follow from the truly transformed life. They can be
faked by the lost, and the saved are certainly spiritually weak if they
haven’t changed or have fallen back into a life of sin. But we are to
focus on our own spiritual health, not on whether others meet our
personal level of spirituality. Spiritual maturity is not a means to a
high position of rule, but a low position of service, of being an
example to others and slowly becoming like our Master and Savior.
One very important factor in our spiritual growth is to spend time
with other believers (Heb. 10:24-25). This is the only way we can
use the spiritual gifts God gives each believer (1 Cor. 12:7), since
their purpose is to help other believers and be helped in turn by
them.
We make up the temple of God since his Spirit lives within us.
The Holy Spirit helps us in many ways, including praying on our
behalf when we just don’t have the words.
Different spiritual gifts are given to each believer, so we need to
use them to help each other in order for the Body of Christ to
function properly.
The Spirit transforms us into the image of Jesus as we mature
in the faith.
Our character and behavior exhibit the “fruit” or evidence of the
Spirit in us as we mature, such that lack of such evidence
should be a matter of great concern.
We must not squelch, limit, or grieve the Spirit; this is a choice
we make.
Again, the Holy Spirit gives gifts, not earned wages for which we can
receive rewards/payments. Rewards are what we earn by our
choices and behavior, the character we choose to exhibit in our
mortal lives.
Gifts and wages
Scripture makes a sharp distinction between what is received as a
gift and what is rewarded as earned wages for our works; read Rom.
4:1-5, Rom. 11:6, Rom. 14:10-13, 1 Cor. 3:12-15, 2 Cor. 5:10, Gal.
5:4, and Eph. 2:8-9. So any passage using the terminology of gifts
or grace can have nothing to do with our works or deeds;
conversely, passages using the terminology of wages, debts, or
rewards have nothing to do with gifts. Therefore, since salvation is
presented in terms of gifts, it can never be either earned or lost, but
rewards or wages can be lost by inaction or sinful action. There
would be no purpose for the future judgment of our deeds if they
don’t matter, so we need to take seriously the way we choose to live.
None have been more abused than the gift of “tongues”, meaning
being temporarily able to speak in a language we don’t know, or to
interpret a message given that way. Instructions on the handling of
this gift are given clearly in 1 Cor. 12 and 14, and there is no hint
that such gifts have ceased. (Some take 1 Cor. 13:8 to mean that,
but the text does not support it.) But these rules are rarely followed,
which has led to chaotic babbling being substituted for messages
from God, and heresies such as that a person isn’t really saved until
and unless they demonstrate this gift.
1 Cor. 14:29-33 does indeed say that others must test the prophets’
messages, but how is this done? The only objective method is
comparing them to the Word of God, which means that whatever is
said cannot violate scripture. Emotion or anecdotal evidence is not in
view here. Besides that, for what purpose would be specific
prophecies of riots in a few American cities for example, while none
were given for the horrific persecution of Christians in muslim or
communist countries? It’s the same critical flaw as with the so-called
blood moon prophecies; they are very selective in their application,
since they allegedly tell of the timing of the rapture but not the
holocaust or the infiltration of once-Christian colleges by satanists
and subversives. This is how we weigh and test.
Conclusion
The Christian life is both inward and outward; what we are inside is
expressed in how we live and interact with others (Mat. 15:11). A
person who has humbly accepted the gift of eternal life and adoption
as a child of God should know not to bury it in the ground or use it
as a license to sin. To even ask how much we can get away with
(either by abuse or neglect) means we really don’t understand
salvation at all. Instead, we should only look for faults within
ourselves, and look outside ourselves for ways to lift up others.
Above all, our motive should be humble gratitude and compassion,
to live every day like Jesus matters and we can’t wait to see him
directly.
Did the Church Replace Israel?
The first thing to understand is that this is a 2,000-year-old debate.
In fact, the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament was written
around 50 or 60 AD to address the issue. It begins by explaining that
Jesus is much more than any mere human or angel but God
Himself. Then it points to Israel’s history as a warning, after which it
scolds Jewish Christians for going back under the law of Moses.
There is much more of course, but it shows that this debate has a
very long history, and we should be under no delusion that it will be
settled anytime soon. So the goal here is simply to present the data,
give a perspective, and leave the rest to the reader. We’ll be
focusing our study on these points:
1. Covenants
2. Law and Promise
3. The Grafting Analogy in Romans 11
4. Conclusion
Covenants
Since the identities of Israel and the church hinge on covenants, the
first thing we need to do is to list and study those covenants. Here’s
a chart that helps to clarify and visualize the major covenants in
scripture.
Now please look at the following passages: Acts 3:25, Rom. 9:4,
Rom. 11:27, 2 Cor. 3:6, Gal. 3:17, Eph. 2:12, Heb. 7:22, Heb. 8:6-
13. Were the two covenants with Israel and the church, or with the
people of Israel only? Is the Promise the same as the covenant with
Moses? With David? Here is an excellent study on the issue, which
can be summarized as follows:
Postmillennial (figurative)
Promises of the new covenant for Israel are fulfilled in the
present age via only Israelites who believe in Christ.
Amillennial (figurative)
Promises of the new covenant for Israel are fulfilled in the
present age via Israelites and Gentiles who believe in Christ;
the church has become Israel.
Premillennial (literal)
1. There is only one new covenant with Israel/the church; it is
partially fulfilled in the present age, with ultimate fulfillment
in the future millennial kingdom on earth.
2. There are two separate new covenants, one with Israel and
one with the church. (the most consistent literal conclusion)
3. There is only one new covenant for Israel, but the church's
covenant is not new.
1. It is everlasting.
2. Israel’s physical progeny will be known by the rest of the world
as blessed by God.
I don’t want you to be ignorant of this secret, sisters and brothers, so that you won’t
be congratulating yourselves: Partial callousness has come upon Israel until the full
number of the Gentiles has come in. Then finally all Israel will be saved, just as it is
written: “The Rescuer will arrive out of Zion; he will turn ungodliness away from
Jacob. This is my contract with them when I will take away their sins.”
There are two new covenants: one for Israel to be fulfilled in the
millennium, and another for the church in this age (pre-mil view #2).
1-2 Then am I saying that God rejected his people? Absolutely not! I too am an
Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject
his people, whom he foreknew; ridiculous!…
11 Then am I saying that they’ve fallen and can’t get up? Absolutely not! But their
blunders meant salvation to the non-Judeans, for the purpose of provoking
Israel to jealousy…
13-14 Now here is what I am saying to the non-Judeans, since in fact I am the
Ambassador to them, and I hereby proudly dispense my commission: I try to
provoke my people to jealousy and so save some of them.
1-2 Then am I saying that God rejected Christians? Absolutely not! I too am a
Christian, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject
Christians, whom he foreknew; ridiculous!…
11 Then am I saying that Christians have fallen and can’t get up? Absolutely not!
But Christians’ blunders meant salvation to the Christians for the purpose of
provoking Christians to jealousy…
17-21 Now if some of the branches were broken off so that you, a wild olive
shoot, could be grafted in to join with the root and share in its nourishment, do
not gloat over the branches! If you do, remember that the root sustains you, not
that you sustain the root. But you will object, “Branches were broken off so that I
could be grafted in.” Granted; but they were broken off due to unbelief, and you
were grafted in for belief. So instead of gloating, be afraid! For if God did not spare
the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
22-24 Now look at the kindness— and harshness— of God: harshness to those who
fell but kindness to you. Persist in kindness or you too will be cut out. Now on the
other hand, they will be grafted back in if they don’t persist in unbelief, and God is
certainly able to do that. For if you were cut out of a wild olive tree and, against
nature, were grafted into the cultivated olive tree, don’t you think that it is even
better to re-graft the natural branches back in again?
25 I don’t want you to be ignorant of this secret, sisters and brothers, so that you
won’t be congratulating yourselves: Partial callousness has come upon Israel until
the full number of the non-Judeans has come in.
17-21 Now if some of the Israelites were broken off [from Israel] so that you, a
Christian, could be grafted in to join with Israel and share in its nourishment, do
not gloat over Israel. If you do, remember that Israel supports Christians, not
that Christians support Israel. But you will object, “Israelites were broken off so
that I could be grafted in.” Granted; but they were broken off due to unbelief, and
you were grafted in for belief. So instead of gloating, be afraid! For if God did not
spare Israelites, he will not spare Christians either.
22-24 Now look at the kindness— and harshness— of God: harshness to Israel, but
kindness to Christians. Persist in kindness or Christians too will be cut out. Now
on the other hand, Israelites will be grafted back in if they don’t persist in unbelief,
and God is certainly able to do that. For if you were cut out of Christians and,
against nature, were grafted into Israel, don’t you think that it is even better to re-
graft Israel back in again?
25 I don’t want you to be ignorant of this secret, sisters and brothers, so that you
won’t be congratulating yourselves: Partial callousness has come upon Israel until
the full number of Christians has come in [to Israel].
17-21 Now if some of the Israelites were broken off [from Christ] so that you, a
Gentile, could be grafted in to join with Christ and share in his nourishment, do
not gloat over Israel. If you do, remember that Christ supports Gentiles, not that
Gentiles support Christ. But you will object, “Israelites were broken off so that I
could be grafted in.” Granted; but they were broken off due to unbelief, and you
were grafted in for belief. So instead of gloating, be afraid! For if God did not spare
Israelites, he will not spare Gentiles either.
22-24 Now look at the kindness— and harshness— of God: harshness to Israel, but
kindness to Gentiles. Persist in kindness or Gentiles too will be cut out. Now on
the other hand, Israelites will be grafted back in if they don’t persist in unbelief,
and God is certainly able to do that. For if you were cut out of Gentiles and,
against nature, were grafted into Christ, don’t you think that it is even better to re-
graft Israel back in [to Christ] again?
25 I don’t want you to be ignorant of this secret, sisters and brothers, so that you
won’t be congratulating yourselves: Partial callousness has come upon Israel until
the full number of Gentiles has come in [to Christ].
The fact in this context is that the root is good standing with God
through Christ— not Israel, not the church, not the Gentiles.
The natural branches represent Israel, while the wild branches
represent Gentiles— not the church. Once again: the root is good
standing with God, and the branches represent Israel and
Gentiles. It is those two classes of people whose branches either
stand or fall in relationship with God on the basis of faith in Jesus as
Messiah.
28-32 Now in regards to the Gospel they are in fact your enemies, yet at the same
time they are the chosen people, loved because of their ancestors; the gifts and
calling of God are irrevocable. For just as even you were once hostile toward faith in
God yet were shown mercy by means of the hostility of Israel, so also they are hostile
to this mercy of yours so that now they can be shown mercy. God wraps it all up in
hostility toward faith so he can be merciful to all.
28-32 Now in regards to the Gospel Israelites are in fact Israel’s enemies, yet at
the same time Israelites are the chosen people, loved because of their ancestors;
the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. For just as even you were once hostile
toward faith in God yet were shown mercy by means of the hostility of Israel, so also
they are hostile to this mercy of Israel’s so that now Israelites can be shown
mercy. God wraps it all up in hostility toward faith so he can be merciful to all.
That’s what we have to do if Christians are really Israelites, and it
makes nonsense out of the passage. Now try this:
28-32 Now in regards to the Gospel Israelites are in fact Gentiles’ and
Christians’ enemies, yet at the same time Israelites are the chosen people, loved
because of their ancestors; the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. For just as
Gentiles were once hostile toward faith in God yet were shown mercy by means of
the hostility of Israel, so also Israelites are hostile to this mercy of Gentiles so that
now Israelites can be shown mercy. God wraps it all up in hostility toward faith so
he can be merciful to all.
Rom. 11 Summary
Holiness comes from the root, not the branches; branches are not
grafted into each other. This chapter is talking about how both Israel
and Gentiles can be reunited with God in the “new creation” (2 Cor.
5:17). Jesus didn’t turn Gentiles into Israelites, didn’t replace
Israelites with Gentiles or Christians, and isn’t finished with Israel.
Instead, what Jesus did was to make it possible for everyone to be
saved. The divine plan was to use Israel to make Gentiles want
God, and then to use Gentiles to make Israel want God. His
unfinished business with Israel will be addressed once the Body of
Christ has all its members. That’s what Rom. 11 is teaching.
Conclusion
Jesus didn’t come to put people under the law of Moses; he came to
fulfill the terms of that conditional covenant (Mat. 5:17) and offer the
kingdom to Israel. But they rejected their Messiah, so God’s
attention turned to the rest of the world, to make Israel jealous, until
the number of Gentiles is reached (Rom. 11:25). During this time,
those who have accepted Jesus are neither Jews nor Gentiles but
the Body of Christ (Rom. 7:4, 1 Cor. 10:32,12:27, 2 Cor. 5:17, Eph.
3:6).
And since Jesus is not in the priestly order of Aaron and Levi as
required by the law of Moses, we have no part in them (Heb. 7:12).
Not most, not some, none. The moral laws hinge on love for God
and people, not the other way around (Mat. 22:37-40), so the
absence of the laws written in stone cannot mean that we stop
loving God and people. And since “love does no harm” (Rom.
13:10), then we won’t be violating the law of love.
What God originally created was “very good”, but sin brought lasting
corruption. Before sin there was no hierarchy between Adam and
Eve, and the hierarchy that followed sin was not God’s command
but rather his prediction of the result of Eve’s choice to follow the
man rather than God. The long path from fall to redemption would
require divine intervention at times, beginning with the Great Flood.
Only then do we see God institute rudimentary human government,
whose purpose was to slow the spread of sin and encourage people
to seek him out (see Acts 17:26-27).
The rest of the Bible shows that whenever God does intervene, he
goes against social norms (ref. 1 Cor. 1:27-29): the second- or last-
born over the first, the lowly over the prominent, the weak over the
strong. On the other hand, God doesn’t suddenly and drastically
disrupt human society and its cultural traditions. The laws God gave
to Israel through Moses set boundaries to ensure the humane
treatment of slaves, women, children, and foreigners, yet this hardly
means God endorsed slavery (1 Cor. 7:21), fleshly privilege (Gal.
3:28), or abuse and neglect (Ex. 22:27, Eph. 4:32).
Knowing all this, how can any follower of Jesus desire, claim, or
exercise the very “lording over” scripture so clearly denounces?
Whether it’s done by pastors or patriarchalists, it violates the clear,
overarching principles of how we are to view and treat each other.
We must bend our ways to God’s ways, not upend God’s ways to fit
our ways. Our flesh is irrelevant in the Body of Christ, and none of
us has authority to wield over others. So no passage of scripture
can possibly say the opposite or excuse it in some situations.
Rather, the appearance of some passages to contradict the clear
teachings is due to our own prejudice or misunderstanding. If any
interpretation causes us to restrict fellow believers for any other
reason than living in sin or teaching division (of which flesh-based
entitlement is one example), it is false by definition. So the debate
over whether women can exercise authority is dissolved by the fact
that no one but Jesus and the Apostles in scripture has spiritual
authority or entitlement.
621. I think we find another case of prejudiced translation in Isaiah 3:12. The word
translated children in this verse in Isaiah, is a plural masculine participle of the verb
“to glean, abuse, practice.” It is translated glean in Leviticus 19:10, Deuteronomy
24:21, Judges 20:45, and Jeremiah 6:9. The word has no translation such as
children anywhere else in the Bible, and it occurs 21 times. Another word
altogether is used for children, and child, in verses 4 and 5 of this same chapter; the
sense seems to have been fixed by the supposed context, to correspond with women.
As to the word translated women: Two words, without the rabbinical vowel points,
are exactly alike. One is pronounced nosh-im and the other na-shim. In appearance
the only difference is a slight mark under the first letter of the Hebrew word na-
shim. The first word means exactors; the one with a vowel mark under the initial
letter means women. The entire decision, therefore, as to whether the
word means one or the other depends upon OPTION. Those who
pointed the word, evidently thought the nation could sink no lower than
to pass under women rulers, and then translated the word children to
match it. Commentators frequently call attention to the alternate reading. See
Adam Clarke on the passage. The Septuagint translates: “As for my people, tax-
gatherers (praktores) glean them, and exactors (apaitountes) rule over
them.”
622. There seems little in the context to support the translation children and women.
But study the context as regards the other reading. After complaining of the
gleaners, (that is, tax-gatherers) and extortioners, they are threatened in the
following language: “The Lord standeth up to plead and standeth up to judge the
people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of His people, and the
princes (rulers, masculine, not feminine gender) thereof for ye have eaten up the
vineyard (the conduct of extortionate tax-gatherers), and the spoil of the poor is in
your houses. What mean ye that ye crush (R. V.) my people, and grind the faces of
the poor?” Because of this context, we believe that OPTION took the wrong turn
when it decided to translate this verse as it stands in our English version; and that
this translation would have had a strong showing up of its sophistries, had educated
women been on the last Revision Committee. (emphasis mine)
In all of Jesus’ interactions with women, not once did he shun then,
shame them, or treat them as inferior. Not even the Apostle Paul,
formerly a top Pharisee, treated women as inferior; in fact, he
praised quite a few as co-workers, leaders, even apostles. Are we to
believe, as some teach, that both Jesus and Paul contradicted
themselves by also ordering that women treat their husbands as
they would the Lord, that women must not utter a word in a “worship
service” (while also saying how they can prophesy!), that women
cannot be apostles, ministers, teachers, or leaders of any sort? Do
we see any hint in scriptre that women lack the ability, permission, or
gifting to serve as fully equal members of the Body of Christ, or as
spouses? The scriptural answer is a resounding no.
Space does not permit the listing of all the women on this and other
topics who have been denied justice solely because they were
women, not the common competition of rivals. This hardly means
that men never suffer injustice; rather, it means that women have
suffered additional injustice for no other reason than their flesh.
Conclusion
Even with the worst possible interpretations of scripture, the Bible
treats women far better than secular or religious communities have
done. The Christian community needs to reject gender roles for
Christian roles, flesh-based permission for spiritual gifting, and
chains of command for mutual service. The truly humble don’t fight
for the last place in line or forbid others to join them there. Authority
to teach or preach never lies with the speaker but with the indwelling
Holy Spirit, who does not dispense gifts in pink and blue boxes (i.e.
by the flesh). This renders moot the entire question of Christian
women’s permission.
Let us stop hobbling the Body of Christ, and start treating all fellow
believers as equals, with humility and compassion. Only the proud
fear equality, and such pride harms the Christian community and our
witness to the world. Remember what Jesus warned in Mat. 19:30
and Mark 10:31: “But many who are first will be last, and many who
are last will be first.” A whole-Bible study on this topic can be read
here.
Abusers and Excusers
Scripture tells us how to deal with problems in Christian
communities, but its mandates are rarely followed. The community
has remained silent for centuries about abuse of power, not only by
the illegitimate clergy class but also by many spouses. Yet the
Christian community remains silent. As we can see in Mat. 23:8-12,
Mark 10:35-45, and Luke 22:24-27, the command of Jesus is very
clear: His followers must not pull rank over their brothers and
sisters, and leaders must be role models and mentors rather than
masters and rulers. While other chapters in this book give the details
of how the Body of Christ is to function, this one focuses on finding
ways to correct the failure to put those principles into practice.
Role Models
In Heb. 5:11-6:12, the writer expresses deep disappointment over
the lack of spiritual growth and maturity in the Christian community.
After a reasonable length of time they should have seen progress
beyond the basics and become leaders, but this was not the case,
especially for the former Hebrews to whom the letter was written.
They were putting themselves back under the laws of Moses, which
effectively put Jesus back on the cross. Yet this problem persists to
our day, even among Gentiles (see the chapter on Hebrew Roots).
Yet not everyone is, or should be, a Christian leader, per James 3. In
Heb. 13:7,16, and 17, believers are admonished to look first of all to
those who brought them the Gospel and imitate their behavior. Then
it advises that believers listen to their current leaders, not as
masters but as examples, as those who have already demonstrated
spiritual maturity and are held to a higher (not lower!) standard. This
is likely due to their positions of influence, not authority. A leader or
teacher must not be a novice or heretic, but a faithful guide and
guardian against false teachings. Those who fail in this regard will
face stronger consequences at the judgment. Every believer must
“give an account”, but for leaders/teachers the judgment will be
more strict.
Jesus didn’t feed people fishin [sic] the ancient text. FISH is actually Fishweed
(Seaweed) . The fatted calf was also changed. The original text says throw a feast.
(video)
Another source is this website about SDA dietary laws, but it can’t
seem to make up its mind about eating meat. At the top it says “No
meats are allowed in their diets, including beef, chicken, fish and wild
game.” But under Other Foods it says “While the religion advocates
vegetarianism, followers do have the choice of eating meat if they
choose to.” And of course what they forbid for themselves is hardly
what God forbids for everyone. They make no effort beyond “cause
no harm” to assert that it’s a sin to eat meat.
Going back to the first source, and any others claiming eating meat
is a sin, you’ll notice that the claim begins with a change of words.
But what the Bible’s content should be has to be settled before its
teachings can be studied or debated. So this study is about what
the Bible says, not what some think it should or allegedly used to
say, and only on the matter of eating meat rather than any and all
killing of animals. There will be no disputing the words of the Bible in
the original languages, or speculation on what might be “missing”.
And there will be no hand-wave dismissal of the text by calling
everything an allegory or code, since such an approach reduces
Bible study or debate to a war of personal opinions. Now take note
of the important points in this claim:
2. It’s a sin
3. To eat meat
So to back up the assertion that (1) the Bible says (2) it’s a sin (3)
to eat meat, we must look in the Bible as it is, find at least a general
principle about eating meat, and cite the penalty for failure to
comply. The Bible not only permits eating meat, but sometimes
commands it.
Moral law comes from God, and the laws of Moses are only one
expression of that law. So for us in the Body of Christ, being under
a new priesthood, we’re under a new law; see Rom. 6:14, 7:1-4, 1
Cor. 9:20-21, Gal. 2:16, 21, 3:2-3, 6:2, and Phil. 3:9.
Now since we’re “not under law but under grace”, no appeal can be
made to any of the laws of Moses. Even if we were under those
laws, and “kill” in the 6th Commandment included animals, notice
that nothing is said about eating. But please look at this word “kill” in
both Hebrew and Greek, which is found in both Ex. 20:13 and Deut.
5:17.
Not one of those definitions, or any context in the Bible, equates the
killing of animals with murder. Semantic range (range of meanings)
doesn’t mean we can arbitrarily pick the meaning we want; context is
everything. For example, take the word trunk: Is it an elephant’s
nose, the base of tree, a human torso, male swimwear, a box with a
lid, or the back compartment of a car? It would be nonsense to
substitue “elephant’s nose” and “base of tree” in the sentence “Put
the trunk in the trunk”.Likewise, we can’t arbitrarily insert “put
any living thing to death” in the 6th Commandment.
As for the claim made by some that we can only eat animals we
didn’t kill, consider Deut. 14:21. Was it a sin for the foreigners to eat
meat? Clearly not. And remember what Jesus said in Mat. 15:11.
Romans 2:14 tells us that the Gentiles were not part of the
covenant, but had a law on their hearts nonetheless. Did they rest
on the Sabbath, or eat only kosher food, or refrain from wearing
mixed fabrics? Of course not, because the law on their hearts is the
conscience, not the laws of Moses; see Heb. 7:12, 8:8, and 8:13.
The Bible is quite clear that we’re not under the laws of Moses, so
there can be no appeal to the 6th commandment in defense of the
claim that it’s a sin to eat meat. But what about New Testament
commands such as in Rom. 13:10? Killing is wrong or harm, right?
Jesus himself defined “neighbor” in the parable of the Good
Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37 as a person in need of help and
compassion, and in Mat. 12:11 he states that this applies to animals
as well. So clearly it’s against God’s moral law to cause suffering or
fail to alleviate it when possible.
Conclusion
The Bible makes it clear that it’s not a sin to eat meat, and it’s
neither commanded nor forbidden for Christians. Certainly we’ll
eventually stop eating it, because death will be no more. But in the
meantime, God leaves it up to individual conscience, and the only
sin would be to violate that conscience. So making a law that we
must not eat meat, or even trying to shame people about it, is the
real sin. As Jesus said in Mat. 24:45-51, when he returns he’d better
not find us beating our fellow servants.
We’re free in Christ— not to harm or control each other, but to build
each other up. There’s room for conscience and disagreement, and
with that must come room for grace, tolerance, and compassion.
We need to agree on the essentials of the Gospel of Grace, and if
we think someone’s in error, we should speak to them privately as a
friend and an equal, rather than setting up debates. As the saying
goes, Debate is for de fish.
Food, Water, and Money
Must Christians observe the Lord’s Supper? Must we practice water
baptism? Must we tithe? Tradition says one thing, and scripture says
another. There are two so-called ordinances of the faith: water
baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and tithing has been mandated by
churches since a few hundred years after the time of Christ (see this
source). As a general principle, to call something a command for
Christians, there must be a clear statement about it, such as rules to
perform it or penalties for not performing it, and it must be directed
at the Body of Christ specifically. Let’s study this in the light of
scripture.
Even so, there is clearly more support for this being an ordinance
than for water baptism, yet we still don’t have a command for when,
where, and by whom this is to be done, nor a penalty for not doing it
at all— though there is one for doing it disrespectfully. It cannot save
us, or make us more spiritually mature, or give us better standing in
the Body of Christ. Failure to practice it should never be grounds for
disfellowshiping or shaming any believer.
Water Baptism
Take a look at Mat. 3:11, Acts 2:41, Acts 8:38, Acts 10:48, Acts
11:16, Heb. 11:29, and 1 Peter 3:20-21. Yes, in various places it
shows people getting water baptized when saved, but there’s
nothing about a command for all Christians for all time to perform it,
nor a penalty for not performing it. In fact, the point in some of those
passages was to not get into the water, and our baptism is by fire
instead of water. As with the Lord’s Supper, water baptism cannot
save us, or make us more spiritually mature, or give us better
standing in the Body of Christ.
All tithes were of food (not cash), specifically the best food, for the
nation of Israel, and for those without the means to feed
themselves. But what about Gen. 14:17-20, Malachi 3:9-10, and
Mat. 23:23? Abraham tithed once to a priest, on the spoils of war,
not as a regular habit and on everything he owned. Malachi presents
a scathing denunciation by God against the people of Israel for
breaking the terms of their covenant. There is simply no command
given to the Body of Christ for this, which is why any and all
sermons on tithing come from the Old Testament.
Now let’s look at what the New Testament actually says to followers
of Jesus about giving. In Rom. 6:14, 1 Cor. 16:2,8, 2 Cor. 8:12-15, 2
Cor. 9:6-7, and Col. 3:17, we see that the church is not the
storehouse, the preachers are not the priests, we’re already
supporting the poor, and it’s impossible to “give without compulsion”
when we’re being given guilt trip sermons on not tithing on our gross
income and every little bit of cash we get to live on.
We’ve all heard testimonies from people who tithed and were
blessed. But that’s not giving, it’s investing, because we’re paying
to get something in return. And do we really think God withholds
blessings because we didn’t fork over 10% of our gross pay to a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization? Giving must be free and voluntary,
from the heart and not the calculator. The principle behind it all is in
Col. 3:17: Whatever we do, it should be with pure motives, to honor
God.
Conclusion
We often say that our faith is not a religion but a relationship. Yet by
our actions we say that it is indeed a religion. We ignore Gal. 4:10-
11 and Col. 2:16-17 which specifically reject any sort of liturgical
calendar or religious rites, we put up buildings with a “sanctuary” and
altar (?!), and we usually require memberships for those already a
part of the Body of Christ by virtue of faith in the risen Jesus. The
tune and the lyrics need to match.
Christians and Government
Governments and national boundaries exist by the command of
God, per Acts 17:26-27 (“…[God] marked out their appointed times
in history and the boundaries of their lands… so that they would
seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him”) and Dan.
2:21 (“…He deposes kings and raises up others…”). But does God
really ordain every government ruler, from the decent to the
despotic? Does this apply only to the figurehead or to every office at
every level? Are Christians ever allowed to defy the state, and if so,
how does this not violate Rom. 13:1-7?
The Questions
Let’s begin by looking at the Romans passage to establish which
authorities are in view. Some believe it refers to church leaders, but
unless one spiritualizes the part about carrying weapons, this cannot
be the case. Neither are church leaders to be feared as agents of
God’s wrath against their fellow believers, since the church is not
appointed to wrath (1 Thes. 5:9) and church leaders do not carry
authority.
God doesn’t cause sin or tempt people to sin (James 1:13). But he
does raise up or bring down governments and kingdoms, sometimes
to punish others (e.g. Isaiah 10:5-6). Certainly God would and could
take down any wicked government as he saw fit, but he doesn’t
always do so; in fact, the prophecies of the end times require a
whole world filled with evil governments.
The Answers
How does any of this help to answer the question about whether
Christians can oppose or even revolt against any government?
Certainly Peter was not plotting to disband the Sanhedrin, and Paul
was not a subversive against Rome. But in both cases, the injustice
of the governing body was being confronted. They still had to suffer
the consequences of this confrontation, but it was well within their
rights as Christians and citizens to do so. The Romans passage
speaks of the government as only being fearful to those who do evil,
but when the government itself is doing evil, scripture does not teach
or show by example that we’re obligated to comply. In fact, we must
speak up in opposition.
So can and should Christians oppose the government over any and
all unjust laws and actions? Scripture seems to answer in the
affirmative. This does not mean we try to overthrow government,
either our own or someone else’s. Rather, it means we speak up to
defend the oppressed and oppose unjust laws. And when we pray
for secular leaders, it’s so that they won’t oppress us, not to wish
them success in everything they do. To bless the wicked is to curse
the righteous.
Conclusion
If there must be some form of government, then it’s our obligation to
pray for that government to leave people in peace and bring
evildoers to justice. Every human government will become corrupt in
time; the cycle never ends until God intervenes. Our loyalty as
Christians must always be to God and righteousness above all, not
blindly given to the wicked just because they are the state. Worship
God, not government.
Controversies
Secondly, Jesus’ earthly mother Mary was a sinner like anyone else
(Luke 1:47 “my Savior”) and had a human father like anyone else;
there is nothing in scripture to make her or her parents sinless. The
idea that human flesh is intrinsically evil comes from Gnosticism, not
the Bible (see the chapter on Gnosticism). So since human flesh is
not intrinsically evil, Jesus’ lack of a human father had nothing to do
with inheritable spiritual qualities, and there was no need for Mary to
be sinless. Further, scripture states that Jesus was made in the
resemblance of sinful flesh and like us in every way (Rom. 8:3, Heb.
2:17), while other references state that Jesus was sinless (2 Cor.
5:21, Heb. 4:15, 1 Peter 2:22, 1 John 3:5). Having eliminated the
claim of inherently evil flesh, the only explanation remaining for
Jesus having no human father was because he is God (Isaiah 9:6,
Mat. 1:23, Heb. 1:3, 8-9), who took on human flesh at a point in time
and became the Son as well (Isaiah 9:6, Phil. 2:5-11, Heb. 1:5-6).
But what of the innocent suffering for the sins of others? Justice is
not denied forever; God will eventually compensate everyone
accordingly. Since people cannot help being born in a wicked world
and a body that has physical demands, God offers a genuine choice
for everyone to be generously compensated in eternity. That some
choose to reject this offer is no fault of God’s, and that other choices
besides heaven and hell don’t exist is no denial of justice or mercy.
The U, L, and I depend upon T being true. Since people are born
depraved, then God must choose or elect certain ones for salvation
without regard for any merit in them. Jesus only died for those elect,
and they cannot resist the will of God to choose them. We can know
who was chosen only when they persevere in faith to the end of their
lives. This belief system originated with the Roman Catholic Bishop
Augustine. Here is a summary from one source:
Since the whole system depends upon Total Depravity (Original Sin),
it is covered separately under that title. We will examine the other
points here.
Unconditional Election
Various prooftexts are offered to support the claim that God must
select people for salvation. The more common ones are listed below
with rebuttals:
The Greek of Acts 16:14 says that Lydia’s mind (the heart was
believed to be where thoughts occurred) was opened to pay
attention to what Paul was saying; it does not say God forced
Lydia to believe what he said. Is it “quickening” or faith that
comes from hearing the word (Romans 10:17)? God can limit or
increase a person’s perception (see also Luke 24:31-32), but
this does not violate free will because a person is still
responsible for what they understand. The choices may be few
or many, broad or restricted, but we are responsible for
whatever those choices are.
Acts 11:18 also does not say God forced the Gentiles to
believe; it says he granted them the same opportunity as the
Jews. The whole sequence from Peter’s vision to this statement
teaches the fact that, as Paul would later say in Gal. 3:28, “in
Christ there is no Jew or Gentile”.
2 Peter 1:10 tells belivers to confirm that they were called and
chosen; they are elect because they are saved, not saved
because they are elect.
1 Cor. 2:11-14 is not speaking about the ability to accept the
Gospel message but about spiritual truths in general.
John 1:13 is illustrating the difference between physical
procreation and spiritual birth, not that people are incapable of
making spiritual decisions. Verse 12 says “to all who received
him he gave the right to become children of God”, which is
shown in opposition to those of physical birth. So this right to be
spiritually born (regenerated) follows reception, yet Calvinism
claims it precedes it.
John 5:21 says “For as the Father raises the dead and gives
them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to
give it.” But Jesus offers it to everyone, as shown in 2 Peter
3:9: “The Lord… is patient with you, not wanting anyone to
perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” To read anything
else into that verse— that any and all refer only to those chosen
by God to be saved— begs the question.
John 6:39 refers to the security of the believer, which has no
bearing on the issue of predestination. Verse 44 is presumed to
mean that the Father doesn’t draw everyone, even though
Jesus said that he would draw “all” to himself (John 12:32).
Verses 63-65 show his foreknowledge. The “enabled” of verse
65 are the “receptive” of verse 12. 1 Peter 1:3 is not a proof of
predestination, since no one argues that spiritual life is anything
but a gift.
In John 10:29-30 Jesus says not only that “the Father has given
them to me”, but also “I and the Father are one”.
The order of salvation is faith and then life, not the opposite as
Calvinism claims. Romans 10:9 says, “if you confess and
believe you will be saved”. Hebrews 11:6 says that “without faith
it is impossible to please God”, yet Calvinism proposes a
regeneration without faith. In John 3:15 Jesus says that
whoever believes has eternal life. Therefore, whoever does not
believe does not have life. In other words, to not believe is to be
figuratively dead, so life (the new birth) cannot precede belief.
It is claimed that Eph. 2:1-2 says people are dead in sin, and
the dead can do nothing on their own; they have to first be
regenerated. But aside from the fact that the Greek text really
says “You are all dead to the sins in which you once lived”, this
interpretation cannot be done consistently. Rom. 6:11 says that
we who are saved are dead to sin; does that mean we’re
incapable of sinning? And since we all clearly sin, we’re not as
literally dead as Calvinism claims. It’s ridiculous to argue that
we’re too dead to accept the Gospel, but not dead enough to be
incapable of sinning. Could Lazarus sin while in the grave?
Limited Atonement
According to Calvinism, Jesus only died for the elect, not the whole
world; John 3:16 means all people without distinction, not all people
without exception. But 1 John 2:2 states that Jesus was “the atoning
sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of
the whole world”. Likewise, there is nothing in John 3:16 to put
restrictions or qualifications on “whoever”. In fact, 1 Tim. 2:4 states
that God “is not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance”. How many times must “whoever”, “any”, and
“all” be redefined in order to argue that it doesn’t mean what it says
in those passages? Look also at Rom. 5:12-15, and try to define “all”
and “many” consistently. If righteousness only came to certain
people, then sin and death only came to certain people; Calvinism
cannot have it both ways.
Consider also the implication of saying that Jesus did not die for the
whole world; it cheapens his blood and sacrifice because the
quantity was irrelevant. One drop of blood, one minute of suffering,
would have sufficed, because the Sacrifice was perfect and sinless.
It’s impossible that any of this could be “wasted”, as Calvinism
alleges would be true if Jesus died for the whole world but the whole
world did not get saved.
Speaking of limitations, Calvinism argues that if God wants everyone
to be saved, but everyone is not saved, then his sovereignty is
violated and his will defied. This is a gross distortion of sovereignty;
God does not have a delicate or fragile ego that cannot stand the
slightest disagreement. Rather, God has the sovereignty to allow us
free will. What God wants is for us to return his love, and love isn’t
genuine if it isn’t free. The love of a will only changed by force would
be a sham.
Irresistible Grace
This claim means that if God wants to save you, you have nothing to
say about it; his saving grace is an irresistable force. There isn’t
much to add here except that it’s completely inferred from the T, U,
and L, not from scripture. Grace is favor from the greater to the
lesser, and like any gift it cannot be forced upon the recipient.
Calvinism sees the act of faith to accept it as a “work”, but Rom.
4:4-5 states that “Now to the one who works, wages are not credited
as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not
work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited
as righteousness.” A person stuck in a well does not save
themselves if they take hold of a rope lowered to them by someone
above. It’s their choice whether to accept the offer, but no one
credits them with saving themselves. Instead, the rescued person is
grateful.
Conclusion
Everything Calvinism believes hinges upon us all being born
spiritually dead, and upon a distorted definition of the sovereignty of
God. Because of that foundation, a very complex theological system
is required in order to explain away clear passages about the love of
God, the free will of people, and the fact that salvation is a gift
received by the free exercise of faith. Most of its proof-texts depend
upon extensive and inconsistent definitions and reading into the text
whatever its theology requires; that is, it is circular and fallacious.
Taken to its logical conclusion, Calvinism maligns the character of
God to the point where he more resembles the raw sovereignty of
Satan— a fact which is not lost on critics of the faith.
But what’s the point of arguing about the lack of free will? Isn’t that
self-defeating for Calvinism, since the will of God cannot be resisted
or changed? What difference does it make whether anyone believes
in Calvinism, if God will do as he has predetermined regardless? The
fact that Calvinists argue, and with such ferocity, is proof that they
really do believe in free will. Otherwise they would have to admit that
God is forcing them— and their opponents— to act out what is
essentially a puppet show. Calvinism obfuscates the simple gospel of
salvation by faith and needlessly divides believers.
Responsibility and free will cannot be separated. If one is held
responsible for sin, one must have had the capacity not to sin. And
since Calvinism holds people responsible for sin, then it must also
grant them the ability not to sin. It is fallacious to argue that God
gave us a “sin nature” yet isn’t responsible for what we do with it,
which we cannot help but do. If we had no free will, then God could
not hold us responsible for what we do or shift the blame for what he
himself created us to do. So to say we have no free will is to blame
God for sin and evil. Only if we’re free to choose between good and
evil can we be capable of loving God or responsible for sinning
against him.
Finally, consider Luke 5:32 which says, “I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Why would Jesus refer to the
elect as sinners, but the non-elect as righteous? Or is Jesus
mocking the reprobate (the unchosen) by calling them to do that
which God made impossible? See also 11 Questions on Calvinism,
and this debate.
Calvinism to Universalism
There are many similiarities between Calvinism and Universalism.
There is also a trajectory from Calvinism to Universalism due to the
central belief they have in common: Unconditional Election (God
decides whom to save, whether some or all). Let’s begin with the
similarities:
Many more comparisons could be made, but the point is that in both
systems God forces people to accept him, regardless of the means
or time it may take. The end result is inevitable, whether it applies to
some or to all. In addition, both systems have internal
inconsistencies and disturbing conclusions:
I would preserve free will, even if I were allowed to choose between election of all to
heaven and free will with not all saved, for the same reason that God did: One
cannot have a real relationship of love without the possibility of rejection and of
choosing the loved even in the face of difficulty. I think that love is the higher and
more primary rationale over moral responsibility, and that moral responsibility is the
corollary of freely willed love. That is, it is necessary to make how God deals with
rejection of his love (i.e., hell, annihilation) moral.
One might expect the Universalist to see that love isn’t love if it isn’t
free, and if it’s free then it must allow love to be rejected. Yet one
might also expect the Calvinist to see that if God is truly sovereign
then he has the right to allow people to have free will, and he can
even let them influence his decisions or actions. And one might also
expect the anti-theist to see that only a loving God would, in spite of
his sovereignty, allow his creatures to defy him and reject his love.
In the Bible, God is described as sovereign, just, holy, etc., but love
is the only thing he is said to be; God doesn’t merely have love, he
is love. Therefore, his sovereignty can never operate without it.
Justice and mercy are not incompatible but complementary; each by
itself would deny the nature of God. Jesus’ sacrifice is what allowed
mercy without violating justice. So there will be ultimate justice as
well as ultimate mercy, and which we receive depends completely on
our personal choice regarding the love of God extended by grace
through faith in the risen Jesus.
But keep in mind that all these things extend beyond this life; justice
isn’t denied forever though it may be delayed. Yet at the same time,
even eternity isn’t guaranteed to change people from rejecting God
to accepting him. It’s quite probable that this particular choice will be
denied once we leave earth; otherwise we have to concede that
people could choose to reject God after having been in heaven.
The objection then arises, “But that’s crazy! Nobody in hell would
choose to stay there, and nobody in heaven would choose to leave.”
Yet we know from experience that this is not true; many who have
been in prison are released only to commit their crimes again and be
sent right back. Anti-theists tend to take the attitude that to bow to
God is far more distasteful than the agonies of hell, and some have
stated openly that they would never regret their choice. (This was
actually the point of an early episode of Star Trek called The
Menagerie: “Humans’ history shows them to have a hatred for
captivity, even if it is pleasant and benevolent.”) Of course nobody
wants to suffer, but given a choice between suffering and bowing to
God, many people’s pride is so great that they would prefer
suffering. This may be at least part of what the Bible means by “the
secret of lawlessness” (2 Thes. 2:7). And it is the sin of pride which
made Satan what he is, and will be forever.
But what about the Calvinist and the Universalist? They fare no
better than the anti-theist, because the Calvinist denies the injustice
of sending babies to hell while the Universalist denies the injustice of
sending murderers to heaven. The fact is that all three perspectives
fail to follow their beliefs to their logical conclusions, and all three
have a distorted definition of love and power.
This life is a test and the world is under the temporary juristiction of
Satan (John 12:31, 2 Cor. 4:4, Eph. 2:2, 1 John 5:19). We should
expect only bad things to happen here, but the fact that good things
happen too is proof that God still puts limits on Satan’s sovereignty,
stolen by trickery as it was. Our task is to choose where to put our
faith and to have that faith tested, and we cannot demand a chance
to change our answers after the test has been graded since that
would be most unfair to those who passed it legitimately.
When you consider where the arguments lead and test them for
consistency, you have a choice to make. If we love the lost we will
do everything we can to implore them to reconcile with God through
Jesus, because terrible times are about to come to the earth; Jesus
told of a time when “there will be great distress, unequaled from the
beginning of the world until now— and never to be equaled again”
(Mat. 24:21). If God is love, sovereign, just, merciful, and holy— not
just a few of those but all of them— then we can only conclude that
the time of choosing is temporary:
So while it is still called Today, if you hear his voice don’t harden your hearts… And
who did he swear would never enter his rest? The disbelieving. Now we can see that
they were not able to enter because of distrust. So then, beware that while the
promise of entering his rest is left open you are not left out, because we too have
been brought the good news. But hearing the word did them no good because it was
not mixed with faith. (Heb. 3:15-4:2)
Calvinism must come to grips with the damage it does to the love of
God, and Universalism must come to grips with the damage it does
to the holiness of God. Focus on the love of God and remember that
love must be free; this will answer any objection about various
scriptures typically offered as proof that God is unloving, weak, or
self-contradictory. We cannot watch people run toward the edge of a
cliff and do nothing to warn them, or to deny that they’ll fall to their
deaths; we must speak the whole truth if we care. But above all, we
must know the God we worship.
Universalism
Universalism teaches that all souls will eventually go to heaven,
rather than being destroyed (annihilationism) or being conscious of
eternal torment. We will examine this teaching and see if it holds up
to both scripture and reason.
Universalism argues that no one can pay for someone else’s sins
(Ps. 49:7), so Jesus was not being punished but only giving an
example. However, in John 15:13 we see that Jesus said he did in
fact lay down his life for others, and 1 John 2:2 states that he was
“the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.” Isaiah 53 also
clearly describes the punishment Jesus took for everyone. Yet this is
not at all equivalent to one citizen taking a criminal sentence for
another, but like a parent paying the penalty incurred by their child.
The child is not liable or able to pay it yet the victim must be
compensated. So it is with Jesus’ sacrifice; he paid what we could
not. The price for our adoption was too high for us, and adoptions
are always paid by the parents rather than the orphans.
Universalism teaches that God will forgive everyone, because Jesus
paid for all sin whether they know he did or not. Yet Scripture clearly
states that salvation is by faith in the risen Jesus (Eph. 2:8-9).
Those who rejected him in this life are demanding to be separated
from him for all eternity, and God will reluctantly grant their demand
(Ezk. 33:11, 2 Peter 3:9).
As for those who didn’t know, Rom. 1:18-32 and Acts 17:30 show
that everyone has the evidence they need for proof that there is a
God, but spreading the gospel (good news) about Jesus is our
command to carry out (Mat. 28:19-20). Yet even if we fail, we know
God will be fair, just, and compassionate to those who truly had no
way of knowing about Jesus. We also see in the Gospels and Acts
many instances where God heard the prayers of those honestly
seeking him, and he sent people to tell them the gospel. All who
have the mental capacity to grasp the concepts of right and wrong
must choose, and we can trust God to make sure all who seek him
will hear the gospel. Jesus bought us all a gift, but a gift cannot be
forced on anyone. And besides all of that, how loving would it be to
give a murderer the same eternal life as their victim? Love does not
do away with justice, because God is both loving and holy.
Conclusion
If Universalsim is true, then no one should ever have had to suffer at
all, there was no need for Jesus to die or rise again, there is no
need to spread the gospel, and there is no point in being a Christian
at all. If what people believe is irrelevant, then all Christian martyrs
have died in vain, and every Christian missionary has only been
needlessly laying responsibility on people.
Then Dr. Reagan prefaces his case with the acknowledgment that
regardless of the differences in the two views, hell is a terrible place
that should be avoided by any means. Yet there is a problem with
the logic of a temporary punishment: If the lost are ultimately to be
destroyed, what is the purpose of the suffering? We will return to
this central question later. Above all, he stresses the fact that this is
not an issue over which Christians should divide or retain hostility
toward each other.
Before Dr. Reagan examines the duration of hell, he gives a fair and
accurate description of TRAD. But then he questions the willingness
of TRAD to consider other viewpoints, due to their being held by
many cults denying the reality of hell completely. But his assertion
that fear is the reason TRAD will not “dare to challenge” its own view
must be challenged. Dr. Reagan has already acknowledged the
quality and faithfulness of TRAD believers, which makes this
questioning of their character inconsistent. Many do indeed question
their own beliefs and reach their conclusions out of such
examinations rather than fear. The mere fact that one may change
their mind does not make the former belief erroneous. This entire
point is not only unfair to TRAD believers, but also irrelevant; it is the
teaching that is being questioned, not the teachers.
Yet those same ancient laws also ordered “an eye for an eye”, a
cost to be paid, even if the loss or injury was due to negligence.
Taking someone’s eye certainly causes more than momentary
suffering. Granted that the eye is not continuously plucked out, but
the one losing the eye will never get it back and must suffer the rest
of their natural life without it. And how much punishment did the
nation of Israel endure whenever they defied God? Generations of
them suffered the wrath of God all their lives for deeds done by their
ancestors. Clearly, God’s judgments are not always quick and short-
lived.
Dr. Reagan then argues that the term “second death” conflicts with
TRAD. But the conflict is really with the definiton of death he is
using. Certainly the death of a physical body causes it to
decompose, yet it is never completely gone. But if death means
separation, the conflict disappears. At physical death the body is
separated from the spirit, but at spiritual death (which TRAD defines
as “second”) the spirit is separated from God forever. Dr. Reagan
notes that the term “second death” only appears in Revelation, but
that same book also states that it is the Lake of Fire itself (Rev.
20:14, 21:8), which includes the souls of those who took the Mark of
the Beast, the Beast itself, and the False Prophet. Since the torment
of the latter is conscious and eternal, there is no justification for
saying that the human souls in that same place will not suffer
eternally and consciously as well, though Dr. Reagan will argue to
the contrary.
Next Dr. Reagan argues that the human soul/spirit is not immortal in
its created state, but that it only becomes eternal at salvation (no
attempt is made to explain how the souls of those who die as babies
go to heaven). He cites 1 Tim. 6:15-16 as proof that only God is
immortal, yet this would defeat his own argument as well, since it’s
in the present tense (God is, not was). This claim would also
contradict the earlier admission that the fallen angels will suffer
forever. Clearly Paul is saying that only God had no beginning, not
that only God will live forever.
Dr. Reagan is highly respected, and many have learned much from
his material on eschatology over the years. He has also made his
teachings available for free online. What is being challenged here is
not his character or faithfulness as a Christian, but only his position
on this particular matter. He is certainly not the only popular Bible
teacher to change positions on a topic, and not the only one who
has moved from a valid position to an invalid one.
Certainly we can disagree on this topic, but those who are teachers
are held to a higher standard (James 3:1). Ideas do have
consequences, and many see the TRAD view as repugnant and
turning the lost away from salvation. But the Gospel itself is such a
“stumbling stone”, and any judgment from God even in this life is
often cited as the reason people turn away from Jesus. So this
reaction in itself is not a reason to reject a teaching. What matters is
whether God values justice as much as mercy, holiness as much as
compassion, and love for the victims as much as love for the
perpetrators.
Annihilationism
Annihilationism teaches that the souls/spirits of those who reject
God are to be annihilated, completely destroyed, never suffering
eternal torment. But is that what the Bible teaches?
Key Words
The teaching of Annihilationism centers around two key Greek
words, one of which is usually translated eternal, and the other
destruction. We need to take a close look at those words before we
can build a teaching on them.
51 of these refer to the unending happiness of the righteous; 2 refer to the duration
of God in His glory; 6 indicate an endless amount of time in other contexts; and 7
appear in reference to the punishment of the wicked.
The Greek word for destruction is apollumi; see Biblehub. There are
around 90 occurrences of the word, and the overall usage indicates
the idea of that which cannot return to its former place or condition.
It is an exclusion rather than disintegration or being wiped out of
existence. In contrast, the word λυω (2 Peter 3:11) means loosened,
disintegrated, dissolved, and διαφθειρω (Rev. 8:9) means rotted,
decayed. In both those cases, it’s things being destroyed, rather
than people or souls.
Scriptural References to the Afterlife
The Old Testament says relatively little about the afterlife and does
not present a thorough, developed doctrine about it. So we will focus
on the New Testament’s statements in various contexts. Here is a
list of the most pertinent references to the fate of the unrighteous
dead, and to take them all as metaphors is to beg the question.
Now if a person thrown into fire dies, then isn't their soul also
immediately destroyed? If not, why not? Why make them conscious
of suffering even for a limited time? And what kind of God would
wake the dead just to judge their works (Rev. 20:11-15) and then
annihilate them? How does that show God’s holiness and justice,
rather than sadistic pleasure in torturing people before he destroys
them? How is Annihilationism an improvement over eternal
conscious torment, on the basis of compatibility with a loving God?
Consider also what the purpose of an allegory is. For example, Rev.
5:8 shows that literal incense symbolizes literal prayer. Then why
can we not also say that literal fire/smoke symbolizes literal
suffering? Does scripture ever say that eternal torment is exactly like
fire in every respect? That is a gross misunderstanding of allegory in
general.
Alex: Not if it means I can't live how I want here and now. Don't
Christians suffer persecution for their faith?
Chris: Okay, let me explain it this way: You're a kid and your
parents offer to take you to a theme park. You've never been
there so you say 'no'. They say you don't know what you'd be
missing, it'll be fun. You say no, I'd rather play with my friends
and do whatever I want all day. See, you'd never know the fun
you could have had, because you wanted to stick to what you're
used to.
Alex: You left out the part where if I go to the theme park, I'll
spend most of the day in the hot sun, dying of thirst, waiting in
long lines, hardly eating anything because the food is
overpriced.
Chris: But... the rides, the prizes, the souveniers! And don't you
want to please your parents, who love you enough to make the
offer?
Alex: But you're telling me I won't even know what I'm missing.
Seems to me that the only people who will suffer are the ones in
heaven who remember me.
Conclusion
The reason separation from God is bad, is because all that is good
comes from God. God doesn't send people to eternal torment, they
demand it, because they want nothing that comes from God. God
isn't just love, he is also holy and just. There will be a judgment day
for a reason.
Further reading
Please note that this is not an endorsement of all material at these
external websites.
Innocence
This dispensation begins with the creation of Adam and Eve as
innocents. They had not yet disobeyed God and everything God
created was “very good”. But as sentient beings, they had the
capacity to either obey God or defy him. Some will say that God put
the one restriction against eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil to tempt them, but the scriptures clearly say that God
tempts no one. Their potential for sin came from their sentience,
their free will. So in theory they could have sinned by disobeying any
of God’s commands, which included managing the earth and
“multiplying”. But they failed to obey God in everything, and at the
moment of that first sin innocence was lost. People could no longer
enjoy direct communion with God, and physical death would be the
fate of the first humans and all their offspring. The consequence of
sin was mortality (death) for people and animals, and curses on the
earth itself.
Conscience
People had now acquired a conscience, an inner moral code
showing the difference between good and evil. There was as yet no
formal government, so each individual did whatever they chose. But
as time progressed, humanity regressed— to the point that the Bible
says “But the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind had become
great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds
was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). This brought on the Flood
(deluge), which destroyed all but eight people, the only ones in the
world who found favor with God.
Authority
After the Flood, God established a rudimentary form of government.
Its purpose was to slow down the spread of evil and punish it. God
gave nations the right of capital punishment, a right which he did not
give to the individual. Yet even then people found a way to corrupt
this and use collective power to defy God again. The Tower of Babel
was to be their triumph over God’s authority, so he scrambled their
language into many pieces in judgment. The different languages
prevented people from communicating with each other, so they
scattered (dispersed) over the earth and divided into ethnic groups.
Promise
In time, God then chose one man, Abram (later to be called
Abraham), to establish a unique people group that would eventually
produce the Messiah, the Savior. God made prophetic promises to
Abram, some conditional and some not. But Abraham’s descendents
through Isaac and then Jacob (later renamed Israel), had a habit of
seeing God’s power and rejecting him anyway. Though he moved
them to Egypt where they prospered for a time, they became
enslaved and seemingly deserted by God.
Law
After allowing Israel to be enslaved in Egypt for hundreds of years,
God had Moses lead them out and gave them a written law to obey.
No more were people left to be on their honor to obey God, no more
would there be any excuses. They would now have specific written
regulations to abide by. Sadly though, Israel repeatedly strayed from
God and suffered repeated judgments, until finally God had to drive
them out of their land. Only after several centuries were they
allowed to return, and then only in very small numbers, a mere
remnant. It was to this remnant that Jesus came, only to be
conspired against and crucified. Thus the kingdom promised to
Israel would be delayed.
Grace
It wasn’t just the people of Israel who demonstrated their complete
failure to obey God no matter what the circumstances. So Jesus
came to do for the whole world what we were unable to do for
ourselves: be cleansed once and for all from sin, from separation
from God. The Bible holds Law and Grace in opposition, meaning
Grace is the absence of Law. Jesus took away “the written code,
which was against us, and nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14).
This was the way out of our hopeless condition: to trust in Jesus’
ability to keep the law, not our own ability. But even with this
incredible demonstration of love and mercy from God, people still
refuse to bow to him, to the point where now we can see the signs
of impending worldwide judgment once again.
Christ’s Rule
The last dispensation is known as The Millennium, meaning a
thousand years featuring the kingdom of Israel on earth. Mortals will
be once again in direct communication with God, who will rule the
nations “with a rod of iron”; there will be zero tolerance for rebellion.
People will again live many centuries with only “sinners” dying at
younger than 100 years of age. The judgment-mangled earth will be
restored and repopulated, and there will at last be real peace. But at
the end of it people are tested a final time, and again they fail.
Rebellion in the midst of Eden brings us full circle through human
history, and God must again defeat the wicked.
Implications of Dispensationalism
Knowing all this, the Bible student can then avoid the misapplication
of scripture. For example, the issue of security of salvation (whether
it can be lost) hinges upon a proper understanding of the Age of
Grace in which we now live. It is only the believer indwelt by the Holy
Spirit who is guaranteed eternal life, due to the promise of God and
the fact that we are “new creations” who belong to God and not to
ourselves. Any commands to endure, if they are clearly on the issue
of salvation and not service, are for those believers of other ages.
“if indeed you have heard of the stewardship [dispensation] of God’s grace that
was given to me for you, that by revelation the divine secret was made known to me,
as I wrote before briefly. When reading this, you will be able to understand my
insight into this secret of Christ. Now this secret was not disclosed to people in
former generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by
the Spirit, namely, that through the gospel the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow
members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus. I became
a servant of this gospel according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by
the exercise of his power. To me, less than the least of all the saints this grace was
given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to enlighten
everyone about God’s secret plan— a secret that has been hidden for ages in God
who has created all things. The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the
church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and
the authorities in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 3:2-10)
In light of this, we should not try to mix teachings about this current
age by going to the law of Moses. More about that in a separate
chapter.
Church Councils
This study will cover important church councils in history. It won’t be
exhaustive since there were many councils, not all of which involved
all believers; see this source for a more detailed list.
Notice especially what was not on the agenda: the canon. It wasn’t
until 367 a.d. that Athanasius made a complete list of the 66 books
as we know them; the Council and Constantine were not involved.
For more about that, see this source.
Conclusion
Critics of the Bible simply parrot the claim, “Constantine and the
Roman Catholic Church decided the canon at the Council of
Nicaea”— no details, no dates, no research. But the important fact
is that the New Testament never ordered any future councils.
Doctrine and practices were set by the original apostles, without
rules about icons, church buildings, sacred calendars, clergy,
memberships, rituals, or anything else associated with tradition. So
appeals to post-apostolic councils as somehow having any
Biblical weight or authority are red herring fallacies against the Bible
and anything it teaches.
Eastern Orthodoxy
One of the hallmarks of false teaching is specialized definitions for
many words. We can think of many religious teachings that fit this
description, but this study will focus on one which is very subtle and
seems to be growing in influence within the Christian community:
Eastern Orthodoxy. First, quotations of significe from that source.
[Water] Baptism is the mystery which transforms the old sinful man
into the new, pure man; the old life, the sins, any mistakes made are
gone and a clean slate is given. Through baptism one is united to
the Body of Christ by becoming a member of the Orthodox Church.
Sin is not viewed by the Orthodox as a stain on the soul that needs
to be wiped out, or a legal transgression that must be set right by a
punitive sentence, but rather as a mistake made by the individual
with the opportunity for spiritual growth and development.
Paul says we are like mirrors that not only reflect God’s brightness,
but which are transformed into the light which they reflect(2 Cor.
3:17-18).
I have come to believe that God has also entrusted us with far more
of the responsibility of saving the world than we might commonly
suppose.
Many great teachers on the mystical path have seen the value of
learning from the common strands in their own faith and other faiths;
for instance, Thomas Merton, John Main, Laurence Freeman, and
Bede Griffiths are but a few of many Catholic priests who have
learned much from Eastern spirituality, and the Dalai Lama and
Thich Nhat Hanh, the world’s two most prominent Buddhist writers,
frequently refer to the teachings of Jesus.
The doctrine of theosis puts the trinity in a new light. Many modern
thinkers tell us that 3 is an incomplete number. Carl Jung, and some
others have proposed adding Mary and making it a quaternity.
For Protestants theosis leads to the idea that the 4th member of the
godhead might be humanity.
First Quote
We see in the first paragraph some terminology which is unfamiliar
to those who get their theology directly from scripture, since such
terms cannot be found there. The article attempts to distinguish
between something called God’s “eternal essence” and his
“uncreated energies”. While pointing out that this distinction is
“artificial”, the writer nonetheless thought it important to say. On its
own this artificial construct seems unnecessary, but we will see as
we go along why they make it. It has more to do with making sense
of other beliefs than in explaining something about God that
scripture alone would not tell us.
There are many references to sin in the New Testament, and a spot
check will reveal that sin is not something to be healed but
something to be forgiven. If sin were merely a disease then it would
only need to be healed, but since forgiveness is needed, it must be
something that condemns us. Who is condemned for being sick?
Other words associated with sin are guilt, fall, conviction, something
we can be “in” (ref. 1 Cor. 15:17), something that stings and has
power (vs. 56), something Christ could become on our behalf (2 Cor.
5:21) and we can be led into (2 Cor. 11:29). Clearly the Bible does
not describe sin as a mere illness.
Next we read of the writer’s view of the Bible. Many would agree that
the Bible cannot be interpreted outside of some ecclesiastical
authority, but I see no such stipulation in scripture itself. Ironically,
many in this “tradition” use the phrase “the Bible never says such-
and-such about itself” when the topic is “Bible” or the canon of
scripture, but they don’t apply that objection to the issue of an official
interpreting body. The assertion that sola scriptura would “take the
Bible out of the world in which it arose” is completely baseless. We
who have anchored ourselves to the Bible stress the importance of
studying context in all its aspects. The Bible was not written in the
exclusive lingo of the elite or well educated, but in the vernacular.
Jesus spoke often in terms the ordinary people could grasp, drawing
analogies from their everyday living. It is this idea of having an
official interpreting body that “takes the Bible out of the world in
which it arose”.
Now we move on to the human soul. Where does this idea come
from, of the possibility of a soul in Hades being “changed by the love
and prayers of the righteous up until the Last Judgment”? It is not
found the Bible. Never is anyone said to move from hell to heaven,
either by example or by explicit teaching. All mentions of people
changing have to do with this mortal life. Certainly we can pray for
people, but there is no more change after death: “people are
destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
In the list about final judgment, most Christians would agree with the
first two items. But the third is a bit vague; if it means by “perfected”
that we will finally be in the state which all the saved have in heaven,
no problem. But if it means perfect as in the absolute perfection of
God, that’s unbiblical. The fourth item, however, is very wrong. Hell
(eventually the Lake of Fire) is a place of eternal torment. It is a real
place, not a mere “inability” on our part.
Now we come to a key teaching called theosis or deification. While
no Christian would deny that we are meant to have union with God,
Eastern Orthodox theology goes a step farther and puts it as being
made god. Let’s see if the scripture references they give for this say
what they interpret them to say.
2 Peter 1:4 says, “Through these he has given us his very great and
precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by
evil desires.” To participate in something is not to become it but to
interact or be involved with it. This is far from being “made god”.
John 10:34-36 is part of Jesus’ conversation with the Jews
concerning his identity as the Messiah, where they try to stone him
for blasphemy and he says, “Is it not written in your Law, ’I have said
you are ‘gods’?” His point, in context, is not to deify humanity, but to
challenge the Jews’ charge against him on the basis of his claim to
be God (something many today think Jesus never said). It is a
rhetorical device, not a doctrinal statement. He was basically having
their charge dismissed on a technicality, something the legalistic
Pharisees were quite proud of their expertise at doing.
The next paragraph looks at water baptism, and like many other
theologies, makes this ritual a necessary component of salvation.
But the Bible does not teach this, and in fact contradicts it (see Eph.
2:8-9, 1 Peter 3:21, and Romans 4:4-5). It is the baptism of the Holy
Spirit that cleanses us, and it happens at the moment of salvation.
We are at that moment given many other things as well, and we
don’t need any official group to perform this. It applies as well to the
paragraph following, where they mistakenly state that the Holy Spirit
only comes upon a person via a ritual after water baptism.
Regarding 2 Peter 1:4, the word rendered “you may become” goes
with the earlier phrase about promises and “divine communion”.
That is, the promises we've been given (past tense) are what
enabled us to be in divine partnership. In contrast, Eastern
Orthodoxy claims (or so they can be taken to say) that we gradually
acquire divine nature itself, achieving it by our works/devotion. So
they change “he has freely given us great and priceless promises
which have enabled us to be in a close bond with the divine nature”
to “he has freely given us great and priceless promises that we
might someday become divine.” The first is what is instantly done for
us at salvation, while the second is what a person strives for over
time. The first is about intimate relationship, while the second is
about actually achieving divine nature.
The final paragraph in this quote goes back to the issue of sin and
further defines it as not “a legal transgression that must be set right
by a punitive sentence” but a mere “mistake”. Mistakes are
accidents, but the Bible calls sin an act of the will, a deliberate
rebellion against God (e.g. Isaiah 7:15-16). The scriptures cited
previously clearly show sin to be very much a legal transgression.
Second Quote
Oh, the depths of conceit in the human soul, to actually think “we
should ask ourselves why we allow” suffering on earth, gods that we
are!! This is blatant blasphemy, and quite indistinguishable from the
heathen understanding of “the divinity of man”. 2 Cor. 3:17-18 most
certainly does not say we are “transformed into the light”, but that
we “are being transformed into his image” or likeness, not his
“essence”.
Notice then that what follows from all this is a rejection of the literal
return of Jesus in the Rapture, another hotly-disputed topic to be
covered separately. But standard Dominionist teaching is that Jesus
will not return until Christians have literally taken over the world. It’s
very interesting to see how literal the Bible becomes when it’s
focused not on Christ but on us and our works.
Next our “being one” with God is taken beyond unity and fellowship
to our being “both human and divine”. Not all of the Orthodox go this
far, and rightly so; only Jesus will ever have this dual nature. Even
so, they would say that we actually “partake” of God in such a way
as to share his “energies”, whatever that is supposed to mean.
Thomas Aquinas was quite mistaken about his belief that a poker in
the fire “becomes” the fire. In time the fire destroys it completely; it
never “takes every attribute of the fire”, or any attribute of the fire at
all. It does not acquire a “dual nature” as both iron and fire.
Supposedly this indicates our becoming god and yet still remaining
human, but it fails both as an analogy and as a Biblical truth.
Conclusion
If we follow along the path from the seeming Biblical statements at
the top to the blasphemy at the bottom, we’ll see why a small
deviation from the truth at the beginning can result in a huge error at
the end. People never seem to see the harm in things until they are
drawn into complete heresy, and by then it may be too late. We
must be very careful what we agree to when discussing these
things; we must demand precise definitions and discuss their
implications. As scripture wanrs us in 1 Cor. 5:6, “Don’t you know
that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?” And in Luke
20:46, “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around
in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the
marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues
and the places of honor at banquets.”
Response: The specific verse is 14: “Therefore the Lord himself will
give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and
will call him Immanuel.” This is undisputed, and thus not a point of
contention with Roman Catholic theology.
Response: They admit the cryptic nature of this verse, yet apply it
uncritically to Mary. The normal sense of the verse in context is that
whereas a man normally protects a woman, this new situation would
be a reversal of the norm; Judah would return to the Lord. To claim
this as a prophecy about Mary begs the question. The remainder of
their Old Testament commentary is an outlandish list of alleged
“types” of Mary.
Response: This alleged vow of virginity is pulled out of thin air, since
no one who took such a vow would be betrothed. And there is
absolutely no Scriptural support for Mary having taken such a vow.
She was simply stating her situation at that time, since the wedding
had not yet taken place.
The same must be said of the expression, “and he knew her not till
she brought forth her firstborn son” (Matthew 1:25); the Evangelist
tells us what did not happen before the birth of Jesus, without
suggesting that it happened after his birth. [68] The name “firstborn”
applies to Jesus whether his mother remained a virgin or gave birth
to other children after Jesus; among the Jews it was a legal name
[69], so that its occurrence in the Gospel cannot astonish us.
Finally, the “brothers of Jesus” are neither the sons of Mary, nor the
brothers of Our Lord in the proper sense of the word, but they are
His cousins or the more or less near relatives. [70] The Church
insists that in His birth the Son of God did not lessen but consecrate
the virginal integrity of His mother (Secret in Mass of Purification).
The Fathers express themselves in similar language concerning this
privilege of Mary. [71]
Response: So since Jesus is God in the flesh, and Mary gave birth
to Him, then that makes her God’s Mother, and she is therefore
divine? This is nothing short of blasphemy. No matter how many
people “draw the conclusion”, it’s still the wrong one. How can
Roman Catholicism then claim that they don’t worship Mary as God?
Wouldn’t it be better to deny this false teaching than to please their
church and call Mary a goddess? Divine = God, there’s no way
around it.
Statement: (from the section, Mary during the apostolic life of our
Lord): In reality, Jesus in both these passages places the bond that
unites the soul with God above the natural bond of parentage which
unites the Mother of God with her Divine Son. The latter dignity is
not belittled; as men naturally appreciate it more easily, it’s employed
by Our Lord as a means to make known the real value of holiness.
Jesus, therefore, really, praises His mother in a most emphatic way;
for she excelled the rest of men in holiness not less than in dignity.
Response: One error is piled on top of another. She is now not only
the mother of God, but of all humanity. This is almost identical to the
concept of Mother Earth in Gaia worship.
Response: In spite of her exalted dignity, it was not Mary but Peter
who acted as head of the assembly (1:15).
Summary
The rest of the article is speculation about Mary’s life beyond the
Biblical writings. What Roman Catholic theology does is scripture
twisting, appeals to tradition over scripture, reliance on inferior or
spurious translations, self-contradictions, and logical fallacies. It
appropriates Israel’s blessings but not its curses, turns an ordinary
human into a goddess, and aggressively promotes the Body above
the Head.
Hebrew Roots
Are Christians obligated to live under the laws of Moses? For as long
as the Body of Christ (a.k.a. church) has existed, some have
insisted that Christians must practice the law of Moses as prescribed
in the Old Testament. Though some of those may concede that such
practice is how we show our love to God, others make it a salvation
issue, or at least a fellowship issue. Those who do not agree are
often looked upon as rebellious or ignoring half the Bible. But what
does that very Bible say?
The Hebraic Roots or Jewish Roots movement refers to various organizations with a
common emphasis on recovering the “original” Jewishness of Christianity. This
recovery comes through studying the Bible in its Jewish context, observing the
Torah, keeping the Sabbath and festivals, avoiding the “paganism” of Christianity,
affirming the existence of original Hebrew language gospels and, in some cases,
denigrating the Greek text of the New Testament. Writers such as Roy Blizzard,
David Bivin, Brad Young and Robert Lindsay have given much impetus to this
movement.
Hebraic Roots teachers call upon believers to study Hebrew and learn about Jewish
culture, which most of us can appreciate. More often than not, however, they call
Gentiles to a Torah-observant and/or festival observant lifestyle as a means of
drawing closer to Jesus and being conformed to His image. The implication is, if you
really want to please God, if you really want to be holy, here are the rules. Even
though most do not believe these observances are necessary for one’s salvation, there
is often an implication that this is the higher way. Scripture warns against such
things.
Believers who wish to learn more about the Jewish roots of Christianity do well.
Learning about the Jewish roots of Christianity can transform a black and white
understanding of Scripture into “living color.” A deeper understanding of first
century Judaism can also help people better understand Y’shua and His
contemporaries.
(Added: see this article on whether the Sabbath was commanded and observed for
all mankind from the beginning of creation.)
The line we must not cross is between going back under Torah, and
studying the Old Testament for insight into Hebrew thinking,
customs, and language, in order to help us better understand the
New Testament. Appreciation is one thing, but legalistic performance
is quite another. There is much in the way of a false or romanticized
view of Christianity’s early years being promoted by this movement.
What danger does this pose for Christians today?
Dwight Pryor, a leading voice for evangelicals in the Jewish Roots movement, warns
that some believers are forsaking Jesus and Christianity because of their growing
fondness for Judaism and its teachings. They are crossing a line from appreciation
to adulation of their Jewish roots. It almost seems as though these lapsing Christians
believe that a special insight into their roots somehow elevates their status—as
though there is an inherent superiority in being Jewish.
These people have forgotten that God loves every nation, and that all cultures have
unique contributions to make to the Body of Messiah. Gentiles who say, “We are no
longer Gentiles, regardless of our background” are confused and on the road to
spiritual trouble. Adherents of the so-called “Two House Theory” constitute one
group that has fallen into this kind of error.
The “Two House Theory” basically states that it is not the Gentiles
who are the “wild branches” in the illustration of the olive tree (Rom.
11), but the “lost tribes” of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. In almost,
but not every, instance where Gentiles are understood to be the
subject, the 10 tribes of Israel are inserted instead. Yet at the same
time, they also want to insist that Gentile Christians are grafted into
the natural branches instead of the Tree; their rationale is that the
natural branches are one and the same with the trunk, so to be
grafted into one is to be grafted into the other. So depending on
whether it suits them, they pick whichever symbolism works for their
interpretation.
Now consider Dan. 12:1. Here, the angel Michael is identified as the
one who protects Daniel’s people— not the Gentiles and not the
Body of Christ. There will also be a time of distress like no other,
which Jesus also referred to in Mat. 24:15— for Daniel’s people,
Israel.
As shown in that study, God had not rejected his people Israel,
which Paul identifies as physical and literal descendants of Abraham,
specifically the tribe of Benjamin. The divine plan was to use Israel
to make Gentiles want God, and then to use Gentiles to make Israel
want God. His unfinished business with Israel will be addressed once
the Body of Christ has all its members. That’s what Rom. 11 is
teaching. No one is grafted into Israel, and Israel has not been
replaced by either Gentiles or the Body of Christ. Rom. 11:25-32
mentions the patriarchs (plural), meaning much more than just
Abraham. More importantly, God’s gifts and calling are “irrevocable”.
These were literal and physical in the Old Testament, so there is no
justification for making them figurative in the New.
The rest of the New Testament much more to say about observance
of the law, especially in the letter to the Galatians. To read these
letters, especially considering them all together, is to be impressed
with the forceful opposition made to anything that would rob the
cross of its power and Jesus of his glory. Hebrew Roots proponents
would say that the “law” referenced is not Torah, yet we would reply
that Gentiles are described as “those without the law” (Rom. 2:14).
Of course Gentiles had civil laws; it was only the Torah they did not
have.
The letter to the Hebrews stresses the fact that with a change of
priesthood comes a change of law, and Jesus is the High Priest of a
new order, that being Melchizedek (Heb. 7:12-13). He was not from
the tribe of Levi at all and therefore not qualified to serve as a priest
under Torah. There is just no way around this fact; there is no way
to claim Torah can be kept without Temple or Priesthood, so there is
no way to practice Judaism honestly and Biblically.
You could say that this Hebrew Roots Movement is the “evil twin” of
Replacement Theology. The latter claims that Israel was absorbed
into the church, while the former claims the opposite. But when all
scripture is considered in context, there is no way to escape the
conclusion that the Law and the Promise are two mutually exclusive
elements, that Torah was a “custodian” that brought us to the time
for the Savior to come (Gal. 3:24), and that the Assembly is a
“mystery” unknown to the Old Testament (1 Cor. 2), yet also that
God is not finished with the nation of Israel, per the prophecies of
Daniel, Ezekiel, and John in the Revelation.
Conclusion
Besides the clear separation of Israel and the Body of Christ
established to this point, we cannot brush aside the Millennial
Kingdom passages as discussed here and here. They speak in very
down-to-earth terms especially in the Old Testament: crops, herds,
long but mortal life, generations, animals, etc. Once allegory or the
presumption of non-literalism is invoked, all discussion is reduced to
mere speculation or personal preference. So anyone attempting to
put the burden of the law of Moses on Christians is in clear violation
of the whole of scripture.
Yet the critics miss this key point: Paul never taught that Jews who
were still outside of faith in the risen Messiah Jesus were no longer
under the law of Moses. He taught this only for those who became
Christians. And of course, no Gentiles were ever under that law at
all.
Rebuttal: The critics of Paul insist that only the actual quotes of
Jesus can be trusted. But even the Gospels do not have the actual
words of Jesus, since he spoke Aramaic and was only directly
quoted on two occasions (Mat. 27:46, Mark 5:41, 15:34). Yet Paul
did not contradict Jesus anyway. Jesus did indeed keep the law of
Moses, because he had to be a flawless sacrifice. He also had to
fulfill all the prophecies about that sacrifice. And everything he said,
he said to Jews before the cross and before the Holy Spirit came at
Pentecost. He came expressly for “the lost sheep of Israel” (Mat.
15:24), not the as-yet unknown Congregation (“church”). And as
already noted, Paul never taught freedom from the law of Moses to
Jews but only to Christians. Nothing Paul taught violated or
contradicted anything Jesus taught, either to Jews or to Christians.
Rebuttal: Of all the charges against Paul, this one is easily the most
preposterous, and it can only be made by taking statements out of
context. Paul clearly loathed his former life and considered all his
past accomplishments a pile of manure (Phil. 3:8). He also
considered himself the least of all the apostles (1 Cor. 15:9) and
never denied being a sinner. And he stated explicitly that he did not
die for anyone (1 Cor. 1:13). Yet in spite of all that, his critics will
take statements like Col. 1:24 at face value and ignore the context in
which they were said. The full text is, “I now celebrate my sufferings
for your sakes and do my share to complete in my own flesh
whatever is lacking in the physical sufferings of Christ, for the
sake of his body which is the Congregation.” It was never the
physical sufferings of Christ that saved us, but his death and
resurrection, as Paul himself even said (1 Cor. 15:1-5). In addition,
Jesus said that whoever followed him must “take up their cross” and
would suffer persecution. But note also that Paul says the body he
refers to is the Congregation, not the physical body of Jesus.
Conclusion
The alleged case against Paul as a true, hand-picked apostle of
Jesus is based upon fallacy and failure to consider context, to such
an extreme as to make the canon of the New Testament depend
entirely on which parts support Paul and which can be twisted to
condemn him. Critics engage in a double standard by only accepting
from Paul and others the parts that support their accusations. There
are even some who will take the fact that Paul was picked by Jesus
as insignificant, since Jesus also picked Judas. Such poor logic and
cherry-picking renders the criticisms of Paul too absurd to take
seriously. Yet because of the sheer number of such critics, we must
expose them as they so gleefully expose Paul. Let them endure the
same scrutiny. (See also this excellent satire on how people today
would rebuke Paul for his letter to the Galatians.)
The Karaites
Now let’s turn to Karaite Judaism, because it brings some important
points to the forefront of criticisms of the Christian faith and the New
Testament. From experiences with both Jews and atheists, the
common attitude is that if you’re a Bible literalist, you must agree
with expert Jewish interpretations, because the Tanakh is their book
and we Christians have nothing to say about it. Never mind that with
the exception of Luke, all the New Testament writers were Jews,
who couldn’t and wouldn’t have invented a risen Savior. The disciples
hid in a locked room after Jesus’ crucifixion and were dejected
because they thought he would restore the kingdom to Israel at that
time.
Now read through this article on whether, as some claim, Jesus was
actually a Karaite. Here are additional resources:
The fact remains that Jesus rose from the dead, and no amount of a
claimed superior conclusion can change that. It’s pointless to debate
whether it should have happened when in fact it did. Here are some
resources on Jesus’ resurrection:
Conclusion
Kairite Judaism at least opposes Talmudic Judaism, but it presumes
to be the infallibile interperter, and it shares with Talmudism a
rejection and loathing of Jesus as Messiah. The first Christians were
all Jews who had not been looking to invent a Messiah, much less to
think of Jesus as such before he did miracles and then raised
himself from the dead, so they serve as hostile witnesses to this
charge. Being Jews in the first century before Christianity even
began, they were at least as qualified to interpret the Tanakh as
Jews today, in spite of their claim that they get their teachings from
Jews prior to the time of Christ. Jesus did correct and rebuke the
Pharisees and Sadducees, but he also pointed to himself as
Messiah, so the Karaites cannot claim him as an early Karaite while
ignoring anything he said that doesn’t fit with their beliefs.
Of course, what both Karaites and Talmudists think about the New
Testament, especially the apostle Paul, is refuted by Paul and his
many enemies then and now. Even the secular world believes that
Saul of Tarsus was a top Pharisee who suddenly turned from hunter
to prey regarding Christianity, renouncing his former ways as a
Pharisee. Those Pharisees hated him and tried to kill him, not for
rejecting the Talmud but for teaching the end of the laws of Moses.
Both Jesus and Paul were hated by the Pharisees and Sadducees
for this. So for the Karaites to claim that the Pharisees were only
and always about the Talmud is disingenuous.
Analysis
First, we need to define race. It generally refers to the distinct
language or physical attributes of a people group, though in times
past (and in some cultures yet today) it was more specific than it is
now. For example, each clan or nation was considered a race, even
if the people of different races were much the same in appearance.
Today it’s strictly by skin color and a few main features such as the
eyes, ears, or lips. Biologically and Biblically, though, these attributes
are only variations of a kind, not different kinds. All people have
melanin, which comes in two basic varieties: red/yellow or
black/brown. All other variations are a matter of how much of that
variety a person has; see this article and this chart.
The closest thing to the modern concept of racism in the Bible would
be the distinction of the genetic line of Jacob/Israel from the rest of
the world. God commanded them to keep separate, but never to
feel superior, which is what racism really is. But critics love to
cherry-pick, and for this one the favorite prooftext is Jer. 13:23. The
contextual point is the difficulty of wayward Israel to mend its ways,
but the parallel between the leopard and the Ethiopian isn’t
condemning either of them for what they were born as. The
Ethiopian has no more reason to be ashamed or considered inferior
than the leopard. Since the leopard’s spots aren’t a sign of shame,
then why should a person’s skin color be a sign of shame?
In case anyone argues that the Bible always portrays white as ideal,
remember Num. 12:10, where Miriam’s skin turned “white as snow”,
meaning leprous, as punishment for challenging Moses’ authority to
lead Israel alone. As for Song of Solomon 1:5-6, it says right there
that it refers to being tanned by having to work outside. So skin color
in this case indicates poor or lowly status, not inferiority of being.
Now consider these New Testament passages: Acts 10:28,34-35,
17:26, Rom. 2:11, 10:12-13, Gal. 3:28, Col. 3:11, and James 2:4,9.
As for those who claim to be the real Israelites, they would have to
prove either genetic descendence from the twelve tribes of Israel, or
from proselytes. And it’s because of those proselytes that no one
can rightfully exclude any genetic group, whether Europeans or
Africans or anyone else. Take a look at this article.
The Bible distinguishes true from fake Israel by having the faith of
Abraham (Gal. 3:7,29, Rom. 2:28-29), but “spiritual Israel” means
descendants of the twelve tribes who become Christians (Rom. 9:1-
11); scripture never refers to the Body of Christ as such, since the
two are separate entities as explained in other studies here. So no
ethnic group can claim exclusive rights to being true Israel; not
whites, blacks, reds, yellows, or any shade in between. On the other
hand, the Bible makes it very clear that God promised land to the
nation of Israel that he did not promise to the Body of Christ.
But who would even want to be Israel right now? They’re ripe for
seven more years of God’s wrath after they sign a treaty with the
Antichrist, per the 70 Weeks prophecy of Dan. 9:24-27. The second
half of that is described in passages such as Zechariah 14:2 and
Rev. 12:6,14, and only those living in Judea who flee when they see
the Abomination of Desolation will be spared, which according to
Zech. 13:8-9 will be about one-third.
Conclusion
The Bible does not condone claims of genetic superiority, and
anyone claiming the promises to the nation of Israel must also
accept its curses. Some try to make skin color an issue for Jesus as
well, but his genetics were important only for proving his being the
promised Seed or Messiah and his being born of a virgin (Gen. 3:15,
Gal. 3:16). Anyone pushing the modern concept of race to the
forefront has no idea what the Bible teaches about either Jews or
Christians, or the incarnate Christ. To use race as a weapon or claim
of superiority is real racism, and the Bible does not condone or
support it.
Prophecy
Psalm 83
Enemies of Israel intend to band together and wipe it off the map:
Edom, the Ishmaelites, Moab, the Agrites, Byblos, Ammon, Amalek,
Philistia, Tyre, and Assyria. These correspond roughly to modern-
day Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, northern Iraq, and
possibly parts of Egypt.
Isaiah 17
A prophecy against Damascus:
Jeremiah 30:7
1. The Day of the Lord will be a time of great trouble for Jacob,
though he will survive it.
2. God will save them out of exile where they were scattered
among the nations.
3. Whoever attacks Israel will be attacked.
4. The people of Israel will be numerous and prosperous.
Ezekiel 36-37
1. Though they had been unfaithful and suffered punishment,
Israel is promised revenge against all enemies, and restoration
of their land and people, not because they earned it but so God
would be glorified.
2. God will gather them from all the nations and bring them back
to their own land.
3. God will change their hearts so that they will keep his laws.
4. In the vision of the valley of dry bones, God shows that this
restoration will be in stages: the bones assemble and are
covered with skin, but they were not yet alive, then God
breathes life into them.
5. All the tribes of Israel will join together, no longer divided in two,
with David reigning over them.
6. God will permanently put his Temple there.
Ezekiel 38-39
The prophecy about Gog, of the land of Magog in the far north, ruler
of Meshek and Tubal. The nations listed correspond roughly to
modern Russia, Iran, northern Africa, eastern Europe, and Turkey.
1. God will put hooks in his jaw and turn him and his whole army
around, including those of Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, and Beth
Togarmah from the far north.
2. They will invade a rich land that has recovered from war, whose
people came from many nations to Israel and were now living
securely, peacefully, and unsuspecting.
3. Mere protest will be offered by Sheba, Dedan, and the
merchants of Tarshish. Sheba and Dedan are roughly
equivalent to modern Saudi Arabia, while Tarshish may refer to
areas as far as Britain and the rest of western Europe.
4. When Gog attacks Israel there will be a great earthquake there,
causing the whole world to shake with fear in the presence of
God.
5. God will cause the invading army to turn on itself, and there will
be plague, torrential rain, hail, and burning sulphur, destroying
the army on the mountains of Israel and in the open field, where
the carrion birds and wild animals will consume their bodies.
6. God will send down fire on the land of Magog and those who
live safely on the coastlands.
7. This causes all Israel to know that God is the Lord, and the
world to know that Israel had been punished for its sins.
8. People from the towns of Israel will collect the weapons and
burn them for fuel for 7 years.
9. People of Israel will spend 7 months burying the bodies in the
valley east of the sea, then conduct a more thorough search for
any bodies or bones missed before.
10. God will restore Israel and remove their shame, settling them
forever in the land.
Ezekiel 40-48
The vision giving details of the restored land and people of Israel,
commonly attributed to the Millennium:
Daniel 9:24-27
The prophecy is given of 70x7 years: to end and atone for sin, begin
eternal righteousness, seal up prophecy, and anoint/dedicate the
Most Holy Place.
Daniel 11:31-45
Though this was fulfilled in the past by Antiochus Epiphanes, Jesus
explicitly stated that the Abomination of Desolation was also future.
Daniel 12
1. At that time, there will be unprecedented distress, but your
people whose names are in the book will be delivered.
2. Multitudes who had died will arise, some to eternal life and
others to eternal shame and contempt.
3. Daniel is to seal up these words until the end.
4. The fulfillment of these things will take 3-1/2 years, and will end
when the power of the holy people has been broken.
5. The commencement of these things will be in the distant future
from the time of Daniel.
6. 1,290 days [~3.5x360] will transpire after the abolishing of the
daily sacrifice and the Abomination of Desolation.
7. There is a blessing for those who wait another 45 days after
this.
Amos 9:11-15
1. In that day, God will restore the fallen kingdom of David in its
ancestral land, never again to be uprooted.
2. This will take place after the people are brought back from exile.
Joel 2
The Day of the Lord:
Zechariah 14
A day will come when Jerusalem is plundered and divided up.
1. All the nations surround the city, ransacking houses and raping
women.
2. Half the city goes into exile.
3. Then the Lord fights against them. Their flesh will rot while they
still stand, their eyes will be consumed in their sockets, their
tongues will rot in their mouths, they will kill each other in great
panic, and a plague will strike their animals.
4. His feet stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem,
splitting the mountain in half.
5. That day there will be no sun or darkness, no distinction
between day and night.
6. Living water will flow from Jerusalem, half to the Dead Sea and
half to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and winter.
7. The Lord will be king over the whole world.
8. Jerusalem will never again be destroyed.
9. Survivors from the attacking nations will visit Jerusalem each
year to worship God and celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.
Those who refuse will suffer drought and plague.
The Gospels
1. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world
as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
2. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by military encampments,
you will know that its ruin is near.
3. When you see the Abomination of Desolation (as declared
through the prophet Daniel) standing in the Holy Place, then
those in Judea must run away into the mountains.
4. There will be terrible stress on the world, and great rage against
this people. They will be killed in battle and taken captive to all
the other nations. Then Jerusalem will be trampled on by the
nations until their time is up.
5. The suffering of those days will be unlike anything that has
happened since God first created the world until now, and will
never be again. In fact, if the Lord didn’t cut those days short,
no living thing would survive. But those days will be cut short for
the sake of his chosen ones.
6. Then there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. And on the
earth, the nations will be filled with anguish and perplexity due to
the roaring and turbulence of the sea. People will be deathly
afraid and apprehensive of what is coming upon the whole
world, for the forces of the heavens will be shaken.
7. Then they will see Jesus coming in a cloud with great power and
majesty. But when you see this all coming to pass, stand up and
raise your heads, for you are about to be rescued.
Revelation
1. One of the letters to the churches, to Philadelphia, states that
they will be kept out of the time of trial to come upon the whole
inhabited world.
2. When John is first taken to heaven, he sees a group of 24
elders wearing victor’s crowns and white clothing.
3. The three sequences of 7 judgments commence, with
numerous references to Old Testament prophecies.
4. Jesus comes down to earth with the armies of heaven, to face
the armies of the world massed against him.
5. Satan is bound for a thousand years, during which time the
beheaded saints from the Tribulation will co-rule with Jesus.
6. Satan is briefly released and gathers an army from all over the
world, with Gog of Magog mentioned by name.
7. The army is consumed by fire from heaven, and Satan is
thrown into the Lake of Fire with the Beast and False Prophet.
8. The Great White Throne Judgment begins, and the dead are
judged.
9. Death and Hades are thrown into the Lake of Fire, along with all
whose names are not written in the Book of Life.
10. The present earth and heavens are done away with and
replaced by new ones.
11. The New Jerusalem descends out of heaven, but nothing is said
about whether it touches the earth, and it has no temple.
Preterism
Preterism is the belief that nothing at all remains of Bible prophecy;
anything that seems to remain was actually fulfilled symbolically or
metaphorically by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
We must ask that if the detailed prophecies of the last days are
symbolic, what reality do they point to? John was shown a vision of
“things that must quickly take place”, but what were the things to
be? If they pointed to nothing that could be seen or observed, then
why give the prophecy at all, and why in such detail? The whole
Revelation is stripped of all meaning and relevance if we were never
to take it as a prophecy of real and observable events. The same
can be said for Daniel, whose prophecies were undeniably literal
(see the book “Daniel in the Critics’ Den” by Sir Robert Anderson, or
later similar books by Josh McDowell or Joyce Baldwin).
Daniel
If preterists accept that the first 69 of Daniel’s 70-weeks prophecy
were “weeks of years” or 70x7 years, then the last “week” must also
be a period of 7 years, rather than 7 days to match the final week of
Jesus’ mortal life. But nothing happened in that time frame; the
Temple was not destroyed until 70 years after Jesus was born, ten
times longer than all the other “weeks”. No explanation is given for
this special treatment.
Even if this were true, the sequence cannot be denied. While all
prophetic views largely agree on the first five to seven items, the
sticking point is on the identity of “he”; is it Jesus or someone evil?
Let’s examine each of the remaining items in the list:
But most critical of all is the undeniable fact that the covenant is not
confirmed until after the city and sanctuary are destroyed. Even if
preterists take Jesus’ baptism as the covenant’s beginning, it still
predates his death. In other words, the sequence according to this
argument is as follows:
Yet some preterists hold that this sequence is anything but clear.
Operating from the presumption that the prophecy can only be
speaking of one particular temple, the events are shuffled according
to whether or not the temple is standing. That is,
One wonders how the angel could have made the Preterist
interpretation any less clear. And we have precedent for multiple
temples, since the one standing in Jesus’ day was at least the
second. Preterism must also brush off the “span of time” indicators
“the end will come… war will continue until the end” as limited to 70
AD. A circular argument always seems airtight.
The Gospels
Jesus only mentioned the future ekklesia once (Mt. 16:18). His
primary mission was to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt. 15:24), so we
can’t presume that all or even most of what He said concerned the
coming ekklesia. His reference to “other sheep not of this pen” (John
10:16) is the only other clear reference to the gentile believers,
again in the future.
We should also consider that this phrase about coming in power with
the angels is seen as well in the Sheep and Goats passage in Mat.
25:31-46, which would place this arrival at the end of the Tribulation,
clearly well beyond any normal mortal lifetime. Rev. 1:7 says, “Look!
He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him; those who
pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will grieve.” There are
obviously two groups of people here. “Those who pierced him” (the
Jews) are distinguished from “every eye” (the Gentiles). The phrase
“all the tribes on the earth” is always applied to all the world; see
Gen. 12:3, 28:14, Ps. 72:17, and Zech. 14:17.
Acts
There could not be a clearer statement of delayed prophecy than
that of James at the Jerusalem Council: “Israel is being set aside
until the Lord takes from among the Gentiles a people for Himself.
Then he’ll return to rebuild David’s fallen tabernacle” (Acts 15:13-
18). Israel’s “being set aside” was not completed until the temple
was destroyed in 70 AD. So if that marks the end of all the
prophecies, then the Gentiles were never gathered, because the
setting aside must precede the gathering. Neither can the setting
aside have been completed with Jesus’ death and resurrection,
since it’s only afterwards when James says it’s “being” set aside (at
least present and ongoing, but possibly also future). It’s equally clear
that “David’s fallen tabernacle” had not yet been rebuilt. Israel did
not have a sovereign kingdom in the first century, and its presence
was not drawing the Gentiles to seek the Lord. Just as Peter’s
citation of Joel at Pentecost did not see the fulfillment of every detail
of the prophecy (e.g., signs in the heavens), so also the gathering of
the Gentiles beginning in the first century did not constitute the final
fulfillment of Amos 9:11-12 as referenced by James.
The Letters
Paul wrote, “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and
our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to
become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from
us… asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.” (2 Thes.
2:1-2) A figurative or symbolic coming would hardly alarm anyone,
especially if the judgments to follow were likewise symbolic. The
people’s very alarm was ample proof that they believed in the literal
fulfillment of the coming of the Lord and the Tribulation to follow.
Preterists may argue that the people could only have been fooled if
they understood that this was all symbolic, since it was not
observable. But again, they were not only fooled but fearful— a
reaction that makes no sense if the judgments were likewise
symbolic. And once again it would be special pleading to take the
signs as symbolic but the persecutions as literal.
The Revelation
Citing Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Victorinus,
Eusebius, and Jerome, scholars have determined that the
Revelation was seen and written toward the end of the reign of
Domitian, the Roman emperor following Nero. Nero died in 68 AD
and Domitian in 96 AD (source). The consensus is that it was seen
and written around 95 AD. So the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD
was long past and thus not the fulfillment of Revelation. And since
there is little doubt that Revelation is referring to the same final
“week” as Daniel, it must therefore be that prophecy’s final and
complete fulfillment.
Some who are not scholars have tried to argue that the references
in these writings were ambiguous; e.g. “The problem here is that the
word ‘it’ in the Greek could refer to the visions John saw, the book
he wrote, or John himself” (source). But such alleged ambiguities
are not mentioned by scholars, and “it” would not refer to John
himself.
Preterists may ask why John would not mention the destruction of
the Temple if the Revelation post-dated it, but there is no compelling
reason for him to do so since this was not a historical record but a
vision from God. We might also ask why none of the early “church
fathers” mentioned it as being a fulfillment of John’s prophecy.
Polycarp states that his church, the one in Smyrna, was not even in
existence in the days of the apostle Paul, leading up to the
destruction of Jerusalem. Smyrna is never mentioned in the Book of
Acts, or in any other New Testament epistle (source). How did this
church so suddenly appear, and so quickly be slandered by “those
who say they are Jews but are not”?
Conclusion
Preterism can only stand by denying historical evidence for the date
of the Revelation, and by inconsistently applying the label of
“symbolic” to select scriptures. Paul warned against such teachings
in 2 Tim. 2:17b-18: “Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who
have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has
already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.”
John was undeniably the last apostle to die, yet he of all people
should have been “caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thes. 4:17) had all things been fulfilled
by 70 AD. There was no return of Jesus to rescue Israel or keep the
temple from being destroyed, and clearly Satan has not been bound
for a thousand years nor thrown into the Lake of Fire. To say this all
happened but life goes on as if it didn’t, is to remove all meaning
from words and make it impossible to really know anything at all—
including whether Jesus rose from the dead.
Additional reading:
Preterism Series
Another Preterism Article
Preterism’s Inconsistencies
Prophecies Still to Come
Introduction
This chapter will attempt to integrate all remaining Biblical
prophecies from both the Old and New Testaments. Too often we err
in our interpretations because we’re unaware of the complete scope
of things, whether they have to do with Bible prophecy, other Bible
topics, or even secular history. So it’s worthwhile to gather all those
details together and look for points of similarity as well as difference.
The Body of Christ will not experience the wrath of God (Col. 3:6, 1
Thes. 1:10, 1 Thes. 5:9, Rev. 3:10, Luke 21:36). Please note that
the phrase “the wrath of God” can also refer to the general attitude
of God toward his enemies in this life, or to the eternal state of such
rebels. To determine whether it means the specific time of God’s
judgments or “the Day of the Lord”, we must consider the context.
But regardless of which meaning one may choose, it’s never
directed at Christians.
Who are “they” who say “peace and safety” in 1 Thes. 5:3, after
which there is “sudden destruction”? Whoever is not “you” in the
Body of Christ. The way we aren’t caught by surprise is by always
being watchful and ready (Phil. 3:20), rather than by somehow
knowing the exact date and hour. Keep in mind that Jesus directed
his comments toward the people of Israel, not the as-yet unrevealed
Body of Christ (Rom. 11:25, Rom. 16:25, Eph. 3:6-9, Col. 1:26-27).
So what he said about watching and being ready, as well as praying
to escape (Luke 21:36), was for them and not us. But of course,
Christians of all times are to be eager to see Jesus return, and to
live so that we won’t be ashamed when he does; this is taught
throughout the Letters.
The Millennium
Israel re-established in land, restored earthly Jerusalem and
temple (Ezk. 36-37, Ezk. 40-48, Jer. 30:10, Jer. 16-24, Amos
9:11-15)
Rule by Christ and the souls of those who refused to worship
the Beast or take its mark (Rev. 20:4)
But what did Jesus mean when he said in John 5:43, “I have come
with the authority of my Father and you won’t accept me, but if
someone comes by their own authority you’ll accept them”? Many
believe this means the Antichrist will be a Jew. Now since many
Jews will reject the Beast when he desecrates the temple, it could
only apply to those who remain. However, Rev. 13:1 says the First
Beast arises out of the sea, which symbolizes the non-Jewish
nations. Rev. 13:11 says that the Second Beast arises out of the
land, which symbolizes the people of Israel. Yet it’s the First Beast
who enforces the 7-year treaty.
Revelation 14:9 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone
worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their
hand…”
How is the Mark given? Etched on the forehead or right hand. Why
these two locations? The most likely reason is that it refers to the
Beast’s withered right arm and blind right eye (Zech. 11:17).
Some people think that any and all references to beasts in the Bible
can be applied to this context, such that pretty much anyone and
anything can be called the Mark of the Beast. By this method, even
Israel or Jesus would qualify. The foolishness of this idea is obvious;
it’s only being mentioned because there are actually people who
think this is how the Bible should be interpreted.
Anyone and anything that doesn’t match all these criteria is not
either of the Two Witnesses. So they aren’t Israel and the Body of
Christ, nor any random political leaders, nor the Old and New
Testaments, nor any other off-the-wall candidate.
Scripture does say that the heavenly bodies serve as signs and to
count off years, but this hardly means that every alignment of stars
or every tetrad is a prophetic sign. So there is no reason to think
that the latest astronomical alignments or phenomena are foretelling
world events. One must be careful when connecting dots.
Mystery Babylon
There are plenty of theories as to the identity of “Mystery Babylon”.
But let’s look at the Biblical description and see what it actually says.
1. She sits on many waters (Rev. 17:1) but is in the desert (Rev.
17:3a)
2. She rides the red beast with 7 heads and 10 horns (Rev. 17:3b)
3. She wears royal robes and carries a chalice holding the filth of
her promiscuity (Rev. 17:4)
4. She has written on her forehead a secret name, “Babylon the
Great, mother of harlots and everything disgusting” (Rev. 17:5;
the Greek says a secret name, not that the name is Mystery
Babylon)
5. She is drunk with the blood of the holy people and martyrs or
witnesses of Jesus (Rev. 17:6a)
After John sees this vision, the angel explains what it symbolizes.
And since the angel does this, there is no reason or justification for
taking the answers as symbols.
1. The beast preceded the time of John, was not in power in his
time, and will arise again from the Abyss (Rev. 17:8a), and is
also the 8th king (Rev. 17:11)
2. The heads represent mountains which are kings; 5 have fallen,
one was currently in power, and one will come later (Rev. 17:9-
10)
3. The ten horns represent ten kings who have not yet come
(Rev. 17:12a) and will hate and destroy the woman (Rev. 17:16)
4. The many waters the woman sits upon represent many nations
of people (Rev. 17:5)
5. The woman represents “that great city that has sovereignty
over the kings of the earth” (Rev. 17:18), who has gained wealth
by trafficking in all sorts of goods as well as human beings (Rev.
18:11-13)
The angel does not give the meaning of the desert. It may simply
mean the place where John saw the vision, but it could also refer to
the site of the ancient city of Babylon in the plains of Shinar (Gen.
10:10), which is in Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, about 30 miles
south of Baghdad (see Bible Atlas). It may also be related to a vision
in Zechariah 5:5-11, where a personification of evil is carried to
Shinar to be set in place. The city was built by Nimrod, who rebelled
against God and established his own religion, which came to be the
source of the worship of Horus and Semiramis, and their various
names including Baal and the Queen of Heaven. So Babylon is
both a literal city and the root of all false religion.
Who are the seven kings? Five of them preceded the time of John,
one was in power in his time, and one was yet to come. Ten
legitimate Roman emperors preceded the time of John, and the
eleventh in his time was Domitian. Further, it seems unlikely that the
angel would be talking about a line of kings from a single kingdom.
So the seven kings represent kings and their kingdoms. Now we
look for five empires before Rome, and the most likely were Egypt,
Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece. But who or what will be
the final empire? All the kings have had something to do with the
Beast, so what do they all have in common? They are all powers
that ruled the known world. The Beast will be the final world
empire, with roots that go back to ancient times. There is nothing in
the text to identify it as “the city on seven hills”.
Who are the ten kings? They will be from kingdoms that have not
existed in the past, and they will be all of one kingdom, since the
word for kingdom in Rev. 17:12 is singular. They will share their
power with the eighth king for a short time, likely half the Tribulation.
Of what significance are the many waters? They represent the
population of the world and are under the authority of the woman,
not the beast. What has the beast “carried” since ancient times, and
will throw off and destroy? The most likely answer is ancient
Babylonian religion. We know that the Beast will do away with the
worship of any god or king but himself at the midpoint of the
Tribulation, so that’s when religious Babylon is destroyed.
What is “that great city that has (in the first century) sovereignty
over the kings of the earth”, that will still be in power during the
Tribulation? It cannot be a country, but it has to be doing diplomacy
around the world just like a country; that is, it’s a city-state. It must
also be guilty of shedding the blood of the holy people. So we can
eliminate any modern city without ancient roots, such as New York
or London. The only city-state that could qualify would be either the
literal city of Babylon, or another city that has been the
headquarters of a revived ancient Babylonian religion. Many
believe the Bible predicts a one-world religion, but this is not the
case; the only world religion will be to worship the Beast.
Has this city ever moved in the past, so we could justify saying that
it’s not the name of the city but its characteristics that identify it as
an entity that existed in the first century and will exist again? We
have a clue in Rev. 2:13, in the letter to the Congregation in
Pergamos, described as the city “where Satan has his throne”. This
is where the priests of the Babylonian religion moved after their city
was destroyed. Quoting Harry Ironside in Babylonian Religion:
When Christ came into this world the mystery of iniquity was everywhere holding
sway, save where the truth of God as revealed in the Old Testament was known.
Thus, when the early Christians set out upon the great task of carrying the gospel to
the ends of the earth, they found themselves everywhere confronted by this system,
in one form or another; for though Babylon as a city had long been but a mystery,
her mysteries had not died with her.
When the city and temples were destroyed, the high-priest fled with a company of
initiates and their sacred vessels and images to Pergamos, where the Symbol of the
serpent was set up as the emblem of the hidden wisdom. From there, they
afterwards crossed the sea and immigrated to Italy, where they settled on the
Etruscan plain. There the ancient cult was propagated under the name of the
Etruscan Mysteries and eventually Rome became the headquarters of
Babylonianism.
The chief priests wore mitres shaped like the head of a fish, in honor of Dagon, the
fish-god, the Lord of life-another form of the Tammuz mystery, as developed among
Israel’s old enemies, the Philistines. The chief priest when established in Rome took
the title Pontifex Maximus, and this was imprinted in on his mitre. When Julius
Caesar (who was an initiate like all young Romans of good family) had become the
head of the States, he was elected Pontifex Maximus, and this title was held
henceforth by all the Roman emperors down to Constantine the Great, who was at
one and the same time, head of the church, and high priest to the heathen. The title
was afterwards conferred upon the bishops of Rome, and is borne by the pope
today, who is thus declared to be, not the successor of the fisherman-apostle Peter,
but the direct successor of the high priest of the Babylonian mysteries, and the
servant of the fish-god Dagon, for whom he wears, like his idolatrous predecessors,
the fisherman’s ring.
So the city may change names and locations, but its character as
the headquarters of the ancient mystery religion remains the same.
Remember that this is the woman and not the beast. The woman
is the Babylonian religion headquartered in a city-state that has
existed in one place or another over the centuries; the beast is the
world government; the seven heads are a line of world emperors;
the ten crowns are new kings of one world kingdom who hand their
power to the beast. Keep in mind also that every kingdom has a
king; every empire has an emperor. So though the Beast is a
kingdom, it’s headed by a man, whose names include “the son of
perdition” and “the man of lawlessness”.
The Millennium and Beyond
First, a brief outline:
The Millennium
Israel re-established in land, restored earthly Jerusalem and
temple (Ezk. 36-37, 40-48, Jer. 30:10, 16-24, Amos 9:11-15)
Rule by Christ and the souls of those who refused to worship
the Beast or take its mark (Rev. 20:4)
Revelation says nothing about the Millennium except that Jesus’ rule
is augmented by judges comprised of those who had been
beheaded during the Tribulation. This is called “the first
resurrection”, yet it is clearly not applicable to the resurrection of the
dead in Christ, since all of these people are those who had been
beheaded for refusing to take the Mark of the Beast.
So at the end, Satan himself is thrown into the Lake of Fire, and all
the people who ever rebelled against God are thrown in as well.
Death and Hades are thrown in too, since there is no more need for
them. Then, in Rev. 21, we are told many details about the New
Jerusalem. It isn’t stated that this huge city ever touches the earth,
but only that it descends from heaven. It is called “the wife, the bride
of the Lamb”, and nothing is ever said about the people of the
newly-rebuilt city of Jerusalem in the land of Israel moving to the
New Jerusalem. It is possible that the land city is for Jews, while the
new city is for Christians.
What happens after that, we are not told. But there is nothing that
says we’ll be stuck playing harps forever, or grow wings, or any of a
hundred other tales that have been told over the years. If we love
and trust God, we can be sure that there was more to all this human
history than sitting on clouds for eternity. All we know is that “No eye
has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived the things God
has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
The Prophet Daniel
This chapter focuses on the prophecies in the book of Daniel. The
content is adapted from the author’s online book, Bible Prophecy:
Foundation and Future.
This is just one of many prophecies that seem to have a “now but
not yet” fulfillment; they’re fulfilled in part at one time but fulfilled
more completely at another time. Then the question is whether the
complete fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy was met in the destruction
of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. It should also be emphasized
that a complete fulfillment must meet every criterion and detail
without exception.
Mat. 24:14-22
Mark 13:14-20
Luke 21:20-28
Did Jesus return in the clouds, accompanied by all the signs in the
sky, and set up his visible earthly kingdom for a thousand years?
This should have happened at or very shortly after the destruction of
Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD if that event marks the final
fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy and Revelation. Yet the only way to
claim it happened is to completely spiritualize it, and this is
inconsistent with the claim that everything else, such as the
destruction and the abomination, was literal and physical.
However, there are parts of the book of Daniel that have had many
details fulfilled in the past. In fact, Dan. 2-7 and 11 have been the
most perplexing aspects of the book to critics of Bible prophecy due
to their detailed predictions of successive kingdoms. We need to be
aware of this, since some mistakenly hold all of it to be yet future
and confuse it with modern events. We will now look at those, and
then go back to look at another prophecy that remains unfulfilled.
Specific Prophecies
We will look now at particular prophetic visions and messages by
chapter, but not in order.
Chapter 2
Ch. 2 is Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue whose head was
made of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze,
lower legs of iron, and feet of a mixture of iron and clay. Daniel
identified the head as Nebuchadnezzar himself, king of the
Babylonian Empire. After him would follow a lesser kingdom (Medo-
Persia, ruled by Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian), then
another (the Grecian Empire, ruled by Alexander the Great), and
finally one that would smash all others (Rome).
Chapter 8
Ch. 8 is a vision about a goat and a ram, and the angel tells Daniel
that the ram’s two horns represent the kings of Media and Persia. It
describes the conquests of Alexander the Great (“the first king of
Greece”), after whose death four of his generals would rule:
Lysimachus, Cassander, Seleucus, and Ptolemy. The “little horn”
coming later was none other than the vile Antiochus Epiphanes, who
didn’t die in battle but from an infestation of worms. There is more
detail here.
Chapter 11
It is the four generals who are described in detail in chap. 11.
Ptolemy I was “the king of the south”. The “daughter” was Berenice
(actually granddaughter, as her father was Ptolemy II), who was
given in marriage to Antiochus II in a doomed plan to achieve
political gains by intrigue and deception. After various raids and
generations, this “king of the south” was Ptolemy IV and then
Ptolemy V.
The “king of the north” was Antiochus III, who as prophesied was
utterly defeated in 217 BC. The details fit historical record as with
the Ptolemies, right up to the “contemptible person” Antiochus
Epiphanes. It is he who is believed to have engineered the murder of
“a prince of the covenant”, Onias III, the high priest. The first
chapter of the apocryphal book 1 Maccabees details his plundering
of the temple and other acts of savagery.
Again, though these things were indeed fulfilled in the past, we
cannot dogmatically state that no future fulfillments remain. But
neither can we presume that these alliances and military campaigns
will be repeated in the future. In all the details of the remaining
prophecies given in Revelation, there is no mention of the kings of
the north and south and details that would connect them to future
events. So though a future fulfillment is possible, it seems most
unlikely.
But starting in verse 36 we read of “the king who exalts himself” who
has “no regard for the gods of his fathers or the desire of women”
and will instead “honor a god of fortresses”. We might still tie him in
with the preceding discussion of Antiochus Epiphanes and the kings
of the north and south, but these new details have no historical
precedent. More importantly, they’re tied in with chapter 12 which
begins with “At that time” and includes the resurrection of the dead.
See also this article.
Chapter 12
So it seems that Antiochus Epiphanes is a very clear type or
foreshadow of the ultimate future fulfillment in the Antichrist (popular
name for the Beast in Revelation). Early in chapter 12 is where we
see the phrase Jesus used, “a time of distress such as has not
happened from the beginning of nations until then”. There has been
much terrible suffering in the world since 70 AD, such that the fall of
Jerusalem at that time cannot have been the ultimate fulfillment of
the prophecy.
Chapter 7
The first half of this chapter is a dream about four beasts, and the
second half is the interpretation, focusing primarily on the fourth
beast. Though the first three are described as a winged lion, a bear,
and a winged leopard, the fourth is not compared to any known
animal. It has ten horns, three of which are replaced by another
horn. The angel states that this beast will overcome the righteous for
3-1/2 years. The description of the fourth beast exactly matches that
of Revelation (e.g. 13:1, 5-8, 17:12-13). Since none of this describes
the situation of 70 AD, it must be yet future.
Chapter 9
Now that we have a good grasp of all that was prophesied through
Daniel, we can focus on the Seventy Weeks prophecy of chapter 9,
since it lays out a clear sequence for all remaining prophecies about
Israel. The first 69 of those weeks was marked as completed when
Jesus came. Now seven years remain, divided into two halves at the
point where the 7-year treaty is broken by the Abomination. So
when we see this same event in the New Testament, we know
that it marks the midpoint of the seven years, such that 3-1/2
years remain before the return of Jesus to the earth and the
restoration of Israel and Jerusalem.
Seventy “sevens” are decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish
transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in
everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint
the Most Holy Place.
Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and
rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be
seven sevens, and sixty-two sevens. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but
in times of trouble. After the sixty-two sevens, the Anointed One will be put
to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will
destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue
until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with
many for one seven. In the middle of the seven he will put an end to sacrifice and
offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes
desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.
To summarize:
The Seventy Weeks would begin when the decree was given (turned
out to be Nebuchadnezzar) to rebuild Jerusalem, and it would stop
short of the final week when the Messiah would be killed. There
would be a prince to come, known now to have been Titus, whose
people destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. This is the
same event Jesus referred to about not one stone being left upon
another (Mat. 24:2), as it was literally fulfilled when the Romans
wanted the melted gold that had run between the blocks. After this
event there would be wars and desolations. Then after that span
of wars would come he who does all of the following:
Clearly Jesus did not set up any idols, nor make and break any
seven-year treaties. The same he does all of this.
The Rapture
What, and when, is this event called The Rapture? To answer those
questions, let’s begin with these principles:
Those who oppose PTR may in fact be unprepared for the sudden
appearing of Jesus; they look for the Antichrist instead of the Christ.
They will also not receive “the crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day— and not
only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim.
4:8). If PTR is wrong, it will be time for those who boasted of their
preparation and discernment to prove themselves. In contrast, PTR
believers would never be fooled, since the Antichrist will not do any
of the following:
We also know that we are already sealed with the Holy Spirit, so we
will not accept any other seals. The Mark of the Beast is a pledge of
loyalty and has to be taken knowingly and voluntarily, and Jesus
would never say “take this mark or starve to death”.
Another historical fact is that between Constantine the 1st and the
Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church had control of what the
vast majority of people believed. So whatever they were against
would not be written about extensively, especially by people who
faced persecution for going against the RCC. So there were many
things not written about during those centuries. And since the RCC
did not teach any Rapture view, it should come as no surprise that
the Rapture, regardless of timing, would not be found in the history
of that era.
There are two groups of people before the separation of sheep from
goat even begins: the ones to be judged, and “the least of my
brothers and sisters”, But who are “the least”? It’s possible that they
could be the Body of Christ, but it’s also possible that these are the
Jews who fled to the place of safety when they witnessed the
Abomination of Desolation (Rev. 12:6, 14). They are not being
judged since God kept them safe for the entire duration of the Great
Tribulation, “out of the serpent’s reach”. Their safety is proof of their
being righteous.
On the surface, the first four signs appear to match up with the 6th
Seal of Revelation (Rev. 6:12-14), which is clearly not the end of the
Great Tribulation:
I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of
smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the
coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
So we see that very similar signs both precede and follow the 70th
week of the prophecy of Daniel.
Paul taught that the Rapture isn’t until after The Man of
Sin is revealed.
The passage being referenced is 2 Thes. 2:1-12, specifically vs 3:
Don’t let anyone trick you in any way, for that day will not come until the Departure
happens and then the Lawless One, the destroyer, is revealed.
But “that day” refers to “the day of the Lord” in the previous verse,
which is not the Departure or Rapture. Moreover, the people Paul
was writing to were afraid that they had missed the Departure and
would now go through the Tribulation. Who fears an allegory, or is
afraid they missed the Tribulation? Conversely, who should be
comforted (1 Thes. 4:13-18) by a teaching that has them going
through the Tribulation?
We tell you this by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive when the Lord
appears will not be in line in front of those who have died. For the Lord himself will
descend from heaven with the loud command of the archangel and the trumpet of
God; the first to rise will be those Christians who have died, and then we who are
alive will be snatched away at the same time with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air. Then we will always be together with the Lord. So comfort each
other with these words.
Now about that question you asked regarding us meeting Jesus in the air. Don’t let
anyone fool you! We said nothing like what that fake letter claimed, that the
Tribulation has already started. The Tribulation cannot begin until after the
Rapture, and then the Lawless One will be revealed. How could you forget what I
told you? And you know what’s holding him back for now. Although lawlessness is
already here, it’s only after the Body of Christ is taken out of the way that the
Lawless One will be revealed.
Then I saw a beast rise out of the sea, and it had ten horns and seven heads… The
whole earth was astounded at the beast, and they worshiped the dragon for
giving jurisdiction to it. They said, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight it?” The
beast was given a mouth with which to speak great and slanderous things, and its
jurisdiction would be for forty-two months. It opened up its mouth to
slander God and his name, and his sanctuary and all who live in heaven. And it was
allowed to do battle with the holy people and conquer them, as well as to have
jurisdiction over all tribes, people groups, languages, and non-Judeans. All the
earth-dwellers will worship it, whose names have not been written in the scroll
of life of the Lamb who had been slaughtered from the establishment of the world.
Summary
Recalling the quote of 1 Thes. 4:13-18 above:
1. Jesus descends
2. the archangel shouts
3. the trumpet of God sounds
4. the dead Christians are raised
5. the living Christians are transformed in an instant (1 Cor. 15:52)
6. the two groups are snatched up into the clouds to meet Jesus
7. this is a message of comfort, not dread
Recalling the earlier quote of Rev. 13:1-8 and how it shows where
the midpoint of the 70th Week is, the 7th trumpet must mark the
midpoint. Therefore, all the trumpets are in the first 3.5 years. It is
unknown whether the Seals are before or after the beginning of that
time, as they may comprise a gap between the Rapture and the
confirmation of the covenant for 7 years. The Rapture precedes the
Seals because we must be gone before the wrath of God begins.
But you know what’s holding him back for now, to keep him from being
revealed before his time. For although the secret of lawlessness is already in
operation, it’s only after the Restrainer is taken out of the way that the
Lawless One will be revealed. This is the one the Lord Jesus will do away with
by the breath of his mouth, and will neutralize when he appears at his arrival. He
will come when Satan is at the height of his power, which he held by means of signs
and fake miracles and seduction. All this will happen to those who would rather die
than love the truth that would save them. As a result, God will force them to
take the wrong path and believe the lie. This is how all who rejected the truth
and celebrated injustice will be condemned (2 Thes. 2:1-12).
Paul wrote to calm the people who had received a forged letter
claiming to be from him, wherein they were told they had missed
The Departure and were now entering the Tribulation. He was
exposing the false teaching and restoring the true teaching he had
brought them before. Had he taught them they’d go through the
Tribulation, they would not be comforted by his words, nor would
they be afraid they had missed the Tribulation (!!).
The Day of the Lord is not the same as The Departure. This has
to be very clear. Paul states the order of events:
1. The Departure
2. The revealing of the man of lawlessness
3. The Day of the Lord
God will not delude his own people or accuse them of hating truth
and loving wvil. Neither will true Christians accept any other seal
than that of the Holy Spirit, “the deposit guaranteeing our
inheritance” (2 Cor. 1:22).
Conclusion
The continual slander against the PTR view is based upon failure to
understand it or blind acceptance of lies from its enemies. We do
not smugly watch the world decay, nor ignore the terrible
persecution of Christians now or in history, nor wish for the suffering
of the lost. Neither are we unprepared for suffering, as this was
promised by Jesus to all his followers.
As for the Mark, Christians are already sealed and would never be
fooled into taking another one. But opponents of PTR will be caught
off-guard by the Rapture, and may well be among those caught
“beating their fellow servants” when Jesus arrives; just look at social
media comments for examples of such beatings. Even mid-trib
Rapture believers heap abuse upon PTR over a difference in timing
of 3-1/2 years, and will call us stupid, wicked, deceived, evil, false
Christians. Many believe that Christians today will be called to suffer
in a way no other believers of any generation have suffered.
Instead,
[We] wait for his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from the dead: Jesus, the
One who rescues us from the coming wrath. ~ 1 Thes. 1:10
Don’t let disturbing thoughts fill your minds; trust in God, and trust in me. There are
many residences in my Father’s home. If there weren’t, would I have told you
I’m going there to get a place ready for all of you? That being the case, I will
return to you and accept you as my own, so that you can be where I am. ~
John 14:1-4
Three Prophetic Cities
This chapter focuses on three future cities: Jerusalem, the New
Jerusalem, and The Lord Is There. The content is adapted from the
author’s online book, Bible Prophecy: Foundation and Future. To
compare The New Jerusalem of Rev. 21 (NJ) and the “city” of
Ezekiel 40-48 called “The Lord Is There” (L), we must first calculate
their respective sizes. No dimensions are given for the Jerusalem (J)
of Zech. 14.
The “Sacred District” containing the areas for L and the priests,
Levites, and workers, measures a square of 25,000 cubits, or about
8 miles. The city itself is 5000 cubits or 1-2/3 miles square. The
temple inside the District (but not inside L) is 500 cubits (including 50
cubits spaces around it) or .17 mile square.
The length, width, and height of NJ are all 12,000 stadia or 1400
miles. The wall is 144 cubits or 252 feet thick.
Analysis
While all three are cities and there are some similarities, the
differences force us to conclude that rather than three descriptions
of one city, there are indeed three separate cities: The New
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and The Lord Is There. NJ and J have a river
flowing from the city, while L has none; only the District temple has a
river flowing from it. NJ and J speak of no day/night distinction, while
L refers to “six working days” and the New Moon regarding the
temple (Ezekiel 46). And of course, NJ is far too large to fit the
descriptions of either of the other cities.
J and L exist after Jesus returns to the earth to set up his kingdom
at the end of the Tribulation, and NJ descends from heaven after the
Millennium. J and L are in times when people are still mortal, while
the time of NJ is when “the curse is no more”. Nothing in NJ’s
context limits the lack of curse to only NJ, and there is no reference
to any more places for the dead or judgment seats for the dead to
face. So J and L are during the Millennium, while NJ is after it.
This doesn’t just concern the people, either, but also the land.
The original land of Israel was determined by God Himself: “the land
of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and
Jebusites” (Ex. 3:8, 13:5, etc.) This area is currently known as
Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, part of Turkey, and
Israel, including Gaza and the West Bank. God promised this area
to Abraham’s descendants.
Clearly, both the land and people of Israel belong to God. In their
present state of unbelief and hostility to their own Messiah, they
must be purged and purified. But it will be by the hand of God,
not Christians or Gentiles, since whoever comes against God’s
people comes against him (Zech. 2:8). So while we’re not
obligated to support or condone what they’re doing as a nation,
neither are we to attack or condemn them— as if we or any other
nations have a right to point fingers at others.
Now we must address the charge that none of the people in Israel
today are true Jews by descendance from Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, but are Khazars and thus the fake Jews spoken of in the
book of Revelation. Though this may be provable genetically for
some of the people, it’s not true of all of them. Neither is it true that
all of them are atheists, Kabbalists, or occultists. Yet God spares his
people no matter how small the number (“remnant”), and the land
still belongs to God. In addition, Gentiles were always allowed to
convert to Judaism and given full rights as Jews (Isaiah 56:3-8). So
even if the people of Israel today were proven to lack genetic
descendance from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, this doesn’t prevent
them from being considered the people of God.
To answer yet another charge, the establishment of modern Israel
by ordinary political means doesn’t mean it isn’t a fulfillment of Bible
prophecy. Was God supposed to just have us all wake up one
morning to see that there was a nation of Israel? How else would
anyone accept that God had something to do with it? The fact that
Israel’s existence in the future was predicted long ago is proof
enough that this is of God— though Israel did in fact appear
suddenly, per Isaiah 66:8.
A question for Christians who say that God has broken his promises
to Israel due to unbelief: What makes them think God won’t also
break his promises to Christian communities whose people lack faith
or keep indulging in sin? Many congregations today are filled with
corruption and worldly hedonism; they have relegated the Bible to
myth or irrelevance in the modern world; they embrace all the
depravity of the wicked and mock the few voices of rebuke and calls
to holiness. If God can abandon Israel, then God can also abandon
us. Those who smugly say that God is finished with Israel should not
think God won’t turn his back on them as well.
Now just as Israel has its own history and promises, so also does
the Body of Christ. It is only in the New Testament, especially the
Letters, where the “mystery” (secret) of this new Congregation
is revealed (Rom. 11:25, 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 1:9, 3:3-9, Col.
1:26-27, 2:2, and 4:3). Not even the Gospels tell us much about
prophecies concerning the Body of Christ, since Jesus stated clearly
that his primary mission was to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Mat.
15:24). Neither will the events of Revelation be primarily about the
Body of Christ, which is never addressed after the seven letters in
chapters two and three. We are “not appointed to wrath” (1 Thes.
5:9) and have never shared in the guilt or prophecies of Israel. No
other righteous people from any other age before or after the Age of
Grace were or will be promised the Holy Spirit as a deposit
guaranteeing salvation (2 Cor. 1:22, 5:5, Eph. 1:13-14). Unlike us,
Israel was never described as the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27, Eph.
4:12). Regarding Eph. 3:6, which states that through the Gospel
both Jew and Gentile are united into one Body, it also states that this
unity is found “in Christ Jesus”. It doesn’t say that Gentiles are
absorbed into Israel.
We are a unique entity, neither Jew nor Gentile, without any detailed
commands for sacred buildings or rituals. We share with Israel
neither law nor priesthood (Heb. 7), prophecy nor judgment, risk of
being disowned nor exiled and scattered. Since our salvation and
righteousness are found not in ourselves but in Jesus, we can
no more be taken from him nor choose to leave him than he
could do such things to himself (1 Cor. 6:19b-20a).
Summary
The Bible is primarily about the people and land of Israel.
Scriptures to and about Israel aren’t to be applied to Christians
or Gentiles.
Scriptures to and about Christians aren’t to be mixed with or
applied to the people or land of Israel, or to the Gentiles.
Unique properties of the Body of Christ include salvation as a
gift, righteousness found only in Jesus and not ourselves,
personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and exemption from the
wrath of God.
Since death (mortality) only began as the curse earned by sin,
then the end of the curse is the end of sin and mortality.
No one can live a mortal life after all personal judgments are
completed and there’s no more place for the dead.
Now when we examine any prophetic passage, we need to ask
questions like these:
Note: The terms “saints” and “elect” refer to the righteous of any
age; they aren’t unique to Christianity. Everyone in the Body of
Christ is a saint, but not every saint is in the Body of Christ.
Science
1. Abduction:
1. Observe a natural phenomenon
2. Form a hypothesis about what could cause it
2. Deduction:
1. Experiment to test the hypothesis
1. Independent variable (cause)
2. Dependent variable (effect)
3. Controlled variable (constant)
2. Experiment to test the null hypothesis (attempt to falsify)
3. Analyze the results
4. Repeat
3. Induction: only deals in probabilities
What is pseudoscience?
A past event, such as the Big Bang or abiogenesis, cannot meet the
standard required to call itself a scientific theory, much less a fact.
So such theories are mere philosophical assumptions and guesses.
Investigating the past is in the realm of probability and is highly
subjective. In fact, science prides itself on its instability, since what it
theorizes today may be abandoned tomorrow. So pseudoscience is
the only thing that really evolves, since interpretation of data is
according to the philosophical bias of the interpreters. And by the
way, since it’s always changing, its defenders shouldn’t get upset
when people disagree with current theory.
(emphasis mine; also note that cosmogony deals only with the
origin of the universe)
Without getting into the details of a debate over the size of the
universe or shape of the earth, consider these questions in light of
how scripture presents them:
What is Science?
We must first of all dispel the notion that “science” is infallible or
settled. In fact, the constant changes in scientific theories are
considered “a feature, not a bug”— and one proudly embraced by
anyone defending them. Today’s vigorously-defended scientific fact
may be tomorrow’s laughable ignorance. Yet one must wonder why
ever-changing beliefs are defended with such fierce zealotry, as if
one’s mother has been insulted. Disagreement with today’s
“science” is treated as damnable heresy, though tomorrow it may be
hailed as the newest advance.
At this point, some may jump to the conclusion that the Bible or the
Christian community is “anti-science”, but the opposite is true.
Genuine scientific practice, adhering to the scientific method (see
chapter on the Bible and Science), is by definition observable,
testable, and repeatable. If it works, it works, and we can observe
this consistently. Why it works is a completely different question, and
the government school system sees to it that certain questions are
not asked. Fact is fact, not theory or conjecture. The Bible deals in
fact/truth, so any claims that contradict it are false. No one can
claim to support the Bible as inspired by God while at the same time
interpreting it throught the lens of ever-changing philosophical
presumptions, as is commonly mistaken for empirical science. A
Christian must chose between the Bible and the religious philosophy
of Scientism.
Conclusion
There is simply no excuse for making the Bible bow, via selective
(arbitrary, inconsistent) allegorization, to what is falsely called
science but more accurately called pseudoscience or philosophy. We
cannot obey two very diametrically-opposed masters. We must
demand rigorous proof of every great claim, especially when it
clearly opposes what God revealed to us. We cannot allow peer
pressure or societal shaming to make cowards or compromisers out
of us.
Evolution
Evolution is a purely naturalistic belief system about the universe,
whose definition is always evolving. Though certainly not an
exhaustive study, this will present the most common claims for
rebuttal.
Three claims so far— natural selection, mutation, and time— and all
three work against evolution.
Conclusion
We’re all still waiting for someone to explain how numerous co-
dependencies (e.g. flowers and bees) all evolved in perfect
synchronization for millions of years without fail. Or how “selection”
creates new information, when to select means to take a subset of
what already exists. Or how an unguided process can ever have a
net gain in any direction; statistically, it’s no different from flipping a
coin, which shows that the greater the number of trials, the closer
we come to no net gain in either direction. Or how learned skills can
be encoded into the gametes in at least one male and one female so
the next generation inherits it. Or how mutation can account for
evolution when every experiment has failed to even begin to turn
one organism into another; e.g. the “fruit fly” experiment, which only
ever produced mutated fruit flies rather than house flies, horse flies,
or dragon flies.
Further Reading
Debunking Evolution
Science Against Evolution
Evo for Intellectuals
Evolution Refuter
Electric Universe
What Color Were Adam and Eve?
Noah’s Ark, Flood
Creation-Evolution Headlines
Missing Secrets of Magnetism
Common Sense Science
Win the prize for proving cellular evolution
God and Time
Can God know the future? Must it be set in stone in order for God to
know it? Is God as much bound by time as we are? Can God
change his mind without changing his nature or essence? These
questions are raised primarily by two extremes of theology: Open
Theism and Calvinism.
Analysis
First we need to have a basic understanding of the nature of time,
as best we can. The A and B theories of time can be briefly
summarized as follows:
A
tensed or dynamic; time passes
the future doesn’t exist but is only a potentiality
the past did exist but doesn’t now
the present alone is real
time cannot be traveled
there must be a First Cause
Time is composed of both sequence and duration.
Logical order is sequence without time, since duration
does not change the order.
B
tenseless or static; the past, present, and future all exist
simultaneously
time can be traveled, at least in theory
Conclusion
Open Theism and Calvinism both try to solve problems created by
their theologies, and both of them seem to think these are the only
two possibilties. Is Middle Knowledge the solution to all of them?
Possibly, but who can really know how God does what he does
(Isaiah 55:8-9)? All we know from scripture is that God himself never
changes, but his dealings with us have changed many times (Heb.
1:1-2). Our actions, prayers, choices, and attitudes affect how we
“run the race”, and God speaks to us in terms we can grasp. But he
knows the future and has given us the freedom and responsibility to
live as we choose, either in alignment with or opposition to his will.
Non-Christian Beliefs
John J. Dunphy, in his award winning essay, The Humanist (1983), illustrates this
strategic focus, “The battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the
public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the
proselytizers of a new faith: A religion of humanity— utilizing a classroom instead of
a pulpit to carry humanist values into wherever they teach. The classroom must and
will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new— the rotting corpse of
Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of
humanism.”
Most who identify as humanists claim it’s only a desire to improve
human interaction, but the quotes above are solidly humanist and
anything but positive or tolerant. It’s a blatant attack upon theism,
especially Christianity. Perhaps the humanists and atheists need
denominations to accommodate all the variations.
And why do atheists even care what anyone believes? If, as they
claim, they are defined by not believing, then why is belief such an
all-important matter to them? Since all attempts at scapegoating
theists have been shown to be fallacious, and since atheists commit
their share of crimes, then what good is atheism doing for society,
and why does it matter since they say we’re merely glorified pond
scum?
Conclusion
Atheism believes that if God made people without free will, they are
puppets he forces to sin and then sends them to hell for sinning. Yet
atheism also believes that if God made people with free will, he
should not have done so, since some people would choose to defy
him and then be sent to hell. Free will and not free will are mutually
exclusive, so what would atheists have had God do? Create no one
at all? If they’re telling God that he must only create people who will
freely choose to obey him, that’s no different in principle from
creating robots. If they’re telling God he’s not allowed to create
anyone at all, they’re saying God is not sovereign, which by
definition means he’s not God.
To atheists, this means that the very concept of God is irrational and
God cannot exist. Yet they themselves believe that all physical
matter somehow came into existence without any cause, since a
physical cause begs the question and a non-physical cause can’t
exist. That is undeniably irrational, yet they believe it must be true
regardless. Thus the dispute between theism and atheism is
between two irrational philosophies, and neither is more rational than
the other.
There are some good, truly peaceful atheists. But as with professing
Christians, such people are the minority. Both the atheist and the
theist often live in conflict with their stated philosophy. Both use the
no true Scotsman fallacy. Both undermine their own group by doing
the very thing they label a fault in others. Both make many irrational
arguments and fail to take their claims to their logical conclusions.
So again, there is nothing in atheism that can objectively and
consistently be called superior or even preferable to theism,
especially Christianity.
Gnosticism
For this topic, please read the excellent article here, summarized
below.
Discrepancies with the Bible also abound, so the only way for
Muslims to accept the Quran’s teaching that the Bible is God’s Word
is to claim that the Bible has been corrupted. But since the Quran
was written only a few hundred years after the Bible was finished,
how can anyone account for such a huge degree of corruption in
such a short time? If God was incapable of protecting his Word even
for a few hundred years, why should we believe the Quran has been
uncorrupted for over a thousand?
The Bible and the Quran are hopelessly incompatible, and the
evidence overwhelmingly supports the Bible as being the true Word
of God. There is just no evidence of any kind for the Quran to stand
on.
Doctrinal Statements
The Bible
Genesis 16:11-12, 17:18-21, 21:3 Isaac, Ishmael, covenant
Matthew 1:1-17 Jesus’ genealogy from Abraham and Isaac
Luke 3:24-38 Jesus’ genealogy back to Adam
Galatians 4:22-31 two covenants
Genesis 1:26, Ex. 3:14, Deut. 6:4, Ps. 45:6-7, Isaiah 46:9, Matt.
28:19, Luke 11:15, John 14:26, 16:13, John 17:1-5, 20:22, Acts
1:4-5, 2:33, 19:2, etc. proof of the Trinity
John 5:18, 6:38, 10:30 Jesus & Father One yet distinct
Luke 1:35, John 1:1-5, 14, 18, 3:16 the Son of God
Isaiah 48:16 God doesn’t speak in secret
John 2:19-21, 1 Tim. 2:3-6 crucifixion, resurrection
Rev. 22:13 Jesus is the FIRST and the LAST
Malachi 2:16, Matt. 5:31-32, Mk. 10:2-12, Col 3:19, 1 Peter 3:7
husbands and wives
Deut. 32:35, Isaiah 34:8, Rom. 12:19, 1 Peter 3:9 teachings on
vengeance
John 3:16-17, Acts 4:10-12, Rom. 5:10, 10:9-10, Eph. 2:8-9
Salvation by faith, not works, only through Jesus
The Quran
Note: Sura numbers differ from one translation to another.
Motivation
The Bible
The Bible commands us to love God and love other people. It
teaches respect for property and authority, considerate treatment of
the weak, and concern for the lost. It shows us how to administer
justice, cope with adversity, and return the love of God.
The highest ideals known to mankind are found in the Bible. Any
who accept it as the Word of God are powerfully motivated to exhibit
the highest standards in all areas of life. Contrary to most, if not all,
other “holy books”, the Bible emphasizes the condition of the heart
as of first importance, with outward behavior being changed as a
result.
The Quran
Although the Quran does teach respect for property and other high
ideals, its motivation is not the love of God but the fear of him.
Outward behavior is essential to salvation, and believers obey not
because they want to, but because they must. The teachings of the
Quran motivate men to domineer women, to hate and kill, and to
ruthlessly spread Islam by force. Jews and Christians are named as
the enemies of Islam and are condemned to Gehenna.
Practice
The Bible
Practice is, of course, the result of motivation. The obvious result of
following the teachings of the Bible is a civilizing influence on society.
Historically, the Bible has had a strong, positive effect on the
development of humane governments and much scientific research.
Yes, there have been those who did evil in the name of Christianity,
but they did so in spite of what the Bible says, not because of it.
Where true Biblical Christianity is practiced, people are free and
prosperous. The United States has been an example of how God
blesses nations that honor him (and what happens when they stop).
The Quran
The results of acting on what the Quran motivates people to do are
obvious. Islam was spread by the sword, in obedience to the Quran
and by the example of Mohammad. After his death, many who had
followed him abandoned his teachings, thinking they were free at
last. But the true believers persecuted them until Islam was firmly
established. In every country where Islam has been dominant, the
people have been impoverished and oppressed. No Islamic country
allows freedom for all people. Those Muslims that are considered
extreme or fanatical are simply taking the Quran literally. Contrary to
popular opinion, it isn’t the violent Muslims who are not practicing
true Islam, it’s the peaceful ones. Those who claim to be peaceful
must somehow spiritualize the Quran, believing it to teach only
spiritual warfare. But there is no contextual justification for such a
view, and no historical precedent.
Leading by Example
Jesus
When studying religions, it’s a good idea to find out what kind of
people founded them. It’s one thing for your friends to speak well of
you, but another for your enemies to do the same. This is true of
Jesus. Whether in the Bible or other sources, even his enemies
have had to acknowledge the superiority of his teachings. He is
flawless in every way, and is still the only “religious figure” to have
risen from the dead. After seeing his life on earth and hearing his
teachings, the world must at least acknowledge him as the best
example of a religious leader. No other person in history is as widely
quoted or emulated.
Mohammad
From the Preface to Volume I of The Quran Interpreted:
Conclusion
The Quran is composed mostly of endless repetitions of the anti-
infidel theme, with a hodgepodge of some Biblical passages. Actual
doctrinal statements are few and far between. Mohammad and his
successors have waged “holy war” for centuries, and Islamic
countries to this day oppress and persecute non-Muslims.
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that their version of the Bible (the New
World Translation or NWT) is the only correct one, and that
mainstream Christians bash them for no reason. Of course they’re
guilty of bashing as well, and the general arguments they present
against our Bible (bias, tampering, etc.) apply at least as much to
theirs, and uniquely to their stepping out of the bounds of semantic
range in order to turn Jesus into a lesser being.
Isaiah 9:6 How can the Son be “the mighty God, the everlasting
Father”?
Isaiah 44:24 and Col. 1:16 YHWH and Jesus are the Creator.
Isaiah 43:11, Luke 2:11, Acts 4:10-12 YHWH and Jesus are the
Savior.
Ex. 34:14, Daniel 7:14 YHWH and Jesus are worshiped as God.
John 1:1-3, 14, 8:58-59, 10:30-33, Rom. 9:5, Heb. 1:8 Jesus is
God (“I AM”, I and Father are one)
Phil. 2:5-11, Col. 1:15, 1 Tim. 3:16, 1 John 4:2 Jesus is God in
the flesh
Psalm 110:1, Rev. 22:16 Jesus the Lord is both the Root and
Offspring of David.
Col. 1:14-20 “Firstborn of all creation” doesn’t mean “first
created thing” but “one with authority ruling over all creation”
(see Ex 4:22, Job 18:13, Ps 89:27, Jer. 31:9; Jesus is also
called “the firstborn from the dead” in Rev. 1:5). Also supported
by v. 16 which shows that Jesus created EVERYTHING that
was created (which, of course, doesn’t include God, who is
eternal).
Gen. 1:26, Ex. 3:14, Psalm 45:6-7 Elohiym is a plural noun but
is used with a singular verb.
Mat. 18:19 “in the name (not names) of the Father, Son, Spirit”
Isaiah 46:9, 48:12-16, John, Acts 2:33, 19:2, Romans 8:11, 27,
15:16, 1 Cor. 12:4-6, 2 Cor. 3:17-18, 5:5, 13:14, Gal. 4:6, Eph.
1:13-14, Heb. 9:14, 1 Peter 1:2, 3:18, Rev. 22:13, 16 all show
the trinitarian nature of God.
Heb. 1:8, Luke 23:43, 1 John 5:20, 1 Cor. 11:30, Phil. 2:5, 1 Cor. 14:14, John 1:1-2,
Cor. 5:1, Col. 1:15-18, Gal. 5:15, Titus 2:13, Gal. 6:18, Acts 2:17, Heb. 10:39, 1 Pet.
3:18, 19, Heb. 12:9, Jude 1:19, Heb. 12:28, 1 John 4:1-6, Rev. 5:10, Rev. 8:9, Acts
20:7, Mark 1:4, Col. 2:12
DR. WALTER MARTIN (who does not teach Greek but has studied
the language): “The translation ’a god’ instead of ’God’ is erroneous
and unsupported by any good Greek scholarship, ancient or
contemporary, and is a translation rejected by all recognized
scholars of the Greek language, many of whom are not even
Christians, and cannot fairly be said to be biased in favor of the
orthodox contention.”
(The late Dr. Barclay and Dr. Bruce are generally regarded as Great
Britain’s leading Greek scholars. Each have New Testament
translations in print.)
DR. B.F. WESTCOTT (whose Greek New Testament text -- not the
English part -- is used in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation): “The
predicate (God) stands emphatically first, as in John 4:24. It is
necessarily without the article… No idea of inferiority of nature is
suggested by [this] form of expression, which simply affirms the true
deity of the Word… in the third clause ’the Word’ is declared to be
’God’, and so included in the unity of the Godhead.”
DR. J.J. GRIESBACH (whose Greek New Testament text -- not the
English part -- is used in the Society’s publication The Emphatic
Diaglott): “So numerous and clear are the arguments and
testimonies of Scriptures in favor of the true Deity of Christ, that I
can hardly imagine how, upon the admission of the Divine authority
of Scripture, and with regard to fair rules of interpretation, this
doctrine can by any man be called in doubt. Especially the passage,
John 1:1-3, is so clear and so superior to all exception, that by no
daring efforts of either commentators or critics can it be snatched
out of the hands of the defenders of the truth.”
Zech. 12:10 “…they will look upon the one whom they have
pierced…” Here the Hebrew “look upon me whom they have
pierced,” in which God is the speaker, has been altered in order to
avoid the implication that the one who is to be pierced (on the cross)
is God.
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was a god.” Instead of the literal “the Word was
God,” we have “a god,” which the sect interprets as “an angelic
being.”
Col. 1:15-17 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all
creation; because by means of him all [other] things were created in
the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things
invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or
governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created
through him and for him. Also, he is before all [other] things and by
means of him all [other] things were made to exist.” Because the
sect teaches that Christ was a created being rather than eternal
God, the word “other” is inserted several times. The first edition of
the translation did this without brackets.
Bibliograpy
Robert H. Countess, The YHWH’s Witnesses’ New Testament: a
Critical Analysis of the New World Translation of the Christian
Greek Scriptures (2nd ed. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian
and Reformed Pub. Co., 1987).
Introduction
Most people would be shocked to learn that the Bible never specifies
what marriage is, beyond the physical union of a man and woman.
There are no instructions on any kind of official ceremony, presiding
official, legal certificate, or even witnesses. All of those things come
from cultural traditions. But such traditions were already in place by
the time scripture was written, and as God’s habit has been, he
worked through, in, and around them. This meant that marriage was
seen also as a contract, and violation of the terms means the
contract is void.
A rabbi called Hillel argued: Why did God use the phrase “cause of
sexual immorality” when he could merely have said “sexual
immorality”? The phrase “a cause” must refer to something else,
which he decided meant “any (or no) reason at all.” But the disciples
of Shammai disagreed; the whole phrase meant exactly what it said:
“nothing but unfaithfulness”. Of course, if God had meant “any or no
cause”, then all other similar laws were redundant too, but the rabbis
only tried to split hairs on this one.
So what Jesus was being asked was very specific: Was the Any
Cause divorce interpretation legitimate? His answer was clearly No.
But at the same time, neither was Jesus making a statement that
meant divorce had no legitimate grounds except for marital
unfaithfulness. If we study the entirety of the law we see that it also
included various forms of neglect as well (Ex. 21:10-11). Jesus was
not giving an all-encompassing teaching on the topic, but rather a
specific answer to the question of no-fault divorce. To apply it
indiscriminately to every marriage for all time is to twist Jesus’
words.
Christian Marriage
Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, included more detail than what was
recorded in the Gospels. In 1 Cor. 7 he taught that spouses owed
each other both physical love (vs. 3-5) and material support (vs. 33-
34), and in vs.10-16 he addressed more specific situations that can
cause marital discord. The first (vs. 10-11) seems to be aimed at a
particular woman wanting to separate, but the second seems to be a
couple where one became saved after marriage. In vs. 15 Paul first
gives an over-arching principle: The most important thing in
marriage is to live in peace. People tend to take Paul’s meaning
here backwards. He’s not saying couples should force themselves to
stay together in the hope that the other spouse will be saved, but
that we don’t know whether the spouse will ever be saved. He
wants people to show mercy to unbelievers who want to leave, and
not make a couple already divorced in relationship to stay married in
only a legal sense.
Summary
God intended from the beginning that marriage would be between
one man and one woman for life (Mat. 19:6). But sin made
concessions necessary, because God is merciful and wants us to
live in peace. Even in cases such as slavery and divorce, God
mandates compassion and opposes neglect and abuse (Mal. 2:14-
16, 1 Pet. 3:7, Eph. 5:25). The Christian community should
encourage and support lifelong commitment, but also recognize
when compassion must overrule legalism. Individual self-discipline
and self-sacrifice, and other qualities of mature Christian adults,
would go a long way toward making divorce a rare thing among us.