THE FAULTY PREOCCUPATION WITH THE DEATH OF CHRIST

THE FAULTY PREOCCUPATION WITH THE DEATH OF CHRIST 

Our interpretation of the following two verses is normally the opposite of how we would understand it if we look at the WHOLE context of Scripture, especially the Torah and how the early Christians understood it.

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up"  John 3:14

In Numbers 21:8, God instructed Moses to set the serpent on a pole for everyone to see it and live. But why, oh why, do most illustrations render the pole as a CROSS? This imagery was unfortunately inherited from Medieval Christianity which was fixated on the crucifixion and death of the Christ. The actual "pole" however is simply a straight stick! 

Strong's Concordance translates "lifted up" as [hupsoó: to lift or raise up, to EXALT, uplift]. So why would DEATH especially by CRUCIFIXION (penalty given by Romans for capital offenses) be an EXALTATION??? Absurd. Ridiculous! Right? That is because Christ really meant "lifted up" to refer to His resurrection and enthronement at the right hand of the Father!

Even the great St. John Chrysostom asked, "How can a criminal death draw people to Christ and make them believe?" What he meant was it has to be the miracle of the Resurrection that would draw men AND make them believe! It has to be LIFE and NOT death that would make men believe.

So why is Christianity preoccupied with DEATH when it should be preoccupied with LIFE? In fact, Christianity  should even be fixated on LIFE - the divine life and being a new creation when united with Christ after water baptism and onwards (John 3:5).

Penal Substitutionary Atonement?

Again, when we mention the Atonement, even scholarly translators render this as "propitiation", i.e., satisfying the anger of an angry God by penalizing a substitute. But this is what the pagans do. It is not biblical at all??? God forbid! Why would God punish His innocent and blameless Son? If this is true, then God is NOT a FAIR JUDGE.  Look up the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. If you think this is talking about the death of one goat, you are again "medieval" in your thinking and unable to see the bigger picture.

Both goats were blameless (and they were NOT SHEEP). One goat was not killed or sacrificed. The other goat was killed WITHOUT ANY RITUAL. The only purpose of killing was to extract the blood of this goat. IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH DEATH. Blood? YES. Death? NO! This blood is then sprinkled on the altar, the holy places especially the Holy of Holies. WHY? Because God told Noah and Moses that "life is in the blood"! The High Priest sprinkles blood on the places corrupted by its contact with the world and sin so that the presence of God through the Shekinah glory will find it fit to dwell in the "purified by blood" Tabernacle!!!

So the Day of Atonement is NOT AT ALL PREOCCUPIED with death but with LIFE ("the life is in the blood") as a type of the blood spilled by Jesus on the Cross being able to forgive, cleanse and purify the heart of every believer whenever they REPENT of sin or having displeased God in any way. The Holy Spirit (the Shekinah glory of the New Testament) cannot dwell in a temple (the believer's body is the temple of the Holy Spirit) UNLESS it is first forgiven, cleansed and purified (1 John 1:6-10). The Day of Atonement does not talk about penalty, substitution, nor a wrathful God. Instead it clearly portrays a loving and holy God who desires to dwell with sinful man and finding a solution to make it happen.

Again, our Christianity has to perform a paradigm shift and be more preoccupied with the DIVINE LIFE given to us instead of DEATH.

The believer's only preoccupation with death is his death to sin and subsequent deliverance from its bondage because he is supposed to be CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST (Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:1-11). The true believer should also be dead to the world (James 4:4) and dead to the elemental spirits of the world (Colossians 2:8,20).

From the beginning of creation, God wanted his human creatures to be bearers of His image. But man fell and subjected himself to death and sin. But "Christ became man so that man can become [like] God" and become true image-bearers again. And when we inherit the divine life through the Holy Spirit and become a new creation, we then have the right and authority to be called "sons of God (John 1:12) because we bear His image in much the same way that Christ bore the image of the invisible God.

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the DEATH (in context, it's actually THE BLOOD) of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, SHALL WE BE SAVED BY HIS LIFE. " Romans 5:10. The Bible is NOT about death, it's ALL ABOUT LIFE!!!

The SEPTUAGINT is a MUST HAVE (Part 4)

 https://www.bible.ca/manuscripts/septuagint.htm

The The Greek Translation of the Jewish Scriptures (commonly known as LXX or Septuagint) started around 300 BC and completed around 150 BC. 

The Masoretic Text (MSS) from which all Roman Catholic and Protestant bibles based their Old Testament from, started its own corruption of the 2nd Temple Jewish Scriptures in 160 AD by the Rabbinical Jews who were already PATENTLY ANTI-CHRIST. Steve Rudd points out in his archeology how these Rabbinical Jews corrupted Ezra's Aramaic-Hebrew translation of Samuel's Paleo-Hebrew version of the Scriptures.

Modern archeological scholars seem to conclude that with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the MSS is the most corrupted version of the Old Testament. That is the version used by the Roman and Protestant Bibles today.

The SEPTUAGINT is a MUST HAVE (Part 3)

 https://www.bible.ca/manuscripts/Septuagint-LXX-Extinction-Hebrew-first-century-mass-rapid-language-conversions-failed-restoration-attempts-Yiddish.htm

We need not say more. Take it from an honest archeologist with many years of experience and actual digs in the Middle East from Egypt to Syria who is now a church pastor himself - Steven Rudd.

Hebrew was an extinct language starting from the end of the exile all the way to 1915 AD. Wow! Blows your mind! That means that Jesus, the Apostles, St. Paul and their disciples DID NOT SPEAK HEBREW AT ALL TO COMMUNICATE GREAT TRUTHS. Instead they used the common language which was Koine Greek. Aside from the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can see how valuable the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures are!

The LXX is a MUST HAVE for any serious Christian!

I have Rudd's book but it seems that his website has more details than the book. So enjoy the link

William Law Quotes from “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy life”

[NOTE: William Law was a 17th century Anglican priest whose writings influenced heavily the Methodist movement of John Wesley}

“We pray like most Christians but live like most Pagans”

 

Let us take an instance in two modest women: let it be supposed that one of them is careful of times of devotion, and observes them through a sense of duty, and that the other has no hearty concern about it, but is at Church seldom or often, just as it happens. Now it is a very easy thing to see this difference betwixt these persons. But when you have seen this, can you find any farther difference betwixt them?

Can you find that their common life is of a different kind? Are not the tempers, and customs, and manners of the one, of the same kind as of the other? Do they live as if they belonged to different worlds, had different views in their heads, and different rules and measures of all their actions? Have they not the same goods and evils? Are they not pleased and displeased in the same manner, and for the same things? Do they not live in the same course of life? does one seem to be of this world, looking at the things that are temporal, and the other to be of another world, looking wholly at the things that are eternal? Does the one live in pleasure, delighting herself in show or dress, and the other live in self-denial and mortification, renouncing everything that looks like vanity, either of person, dress, or carriage? Does the one follow public diversions, and trifle away her time in idle visits, and corrupt conversation, and does the other study all the arts of improving her time, living in prayer and watching, and such good works as may make all her time turn to her advantage, and be placed to her account at the last day? Is the one careless of expense, and glad to be able to adorn herself with every costly ornament of dress, and does the other consider her fortune as a talent given her by God, which is to be improved religiously, and no more to be spent on vain and needless ornaments than it is to be buried in the earth? Where must you look, to find one person of religion differing in this manner, from another that has none? And yet if they do not differ in these things which are here related, can it with any sense be said, the one is a good Christian, and the other not?

 

 

Take another instance amongst the men? Leo has a great deal of good nature, has kept what they call good company, hates everything that is false and base, is very generous and brave to his friends; but has concerned himself so little with religion that he hardly knows the difference betwixt a Jew and a Christian.

Eusebius, on the other hand, has had early impressions of religion, and buys books of devotion. He can talk of all the feasts and fasts of the Church, and knows the names of most men that have been eminent for piety. You never hear him swear, or make a loose jest; and when he talks of religion, he talks of it as of a matter of the last concern.

Here you see, that one person has religion enough, according to the way of the world, to be reckoned a pious Christian, and the other is so far from all appearance of religion, that he may fairly be reckoned a Heathen; and yet if you look into their common life; if you examine their chief and ruling tempers in the greatest articles of life, or the greatest doctrines of Christianity, you will not find the least difference imaginable. Consider them with regard to the use of the world, because that is what everybody can see. Now to have right notions and tempers with relation to this world, is as essential to religion as it have right notions of God. And it is as possible for a man to worship a crocodile, and yet be a pious man, as to have his affections set upon this world, and yet be a good Christian.

But now if you consider Leo and Eusebius in this respect, you will find them exactly alike, seeking, using, and enjoying, all that can be got in this world in the same manner, and for the same ends. You will find that riches, prosperity, pleasures, indulgences, state equipages, and honour, are just as much the happiness of Eusebius as they are of Leo. And yet if Christianity has not changed a man's mind and temper with relation to these things, what can we say that it has done for him? For if the doctrines of Christianity were practised, they would make a man as different from other people, as to all worldly tempers, sensual pleasures, and the pride of life, as a wise man is different from a natural; it would be as easy a thing to know a Christian by his outward course of life, as it is now difficult to find anybody that lives it. For it is notorious that Christians are now not only like other men in their frailties and infirmities, this might be in some degree excusable, but the complaint is, they are like Heathens in all the main and chief articles of their lives. They enjoy the world, and live every day in the same tempers, and the same designs, and the same indulgences, as they did who knew not God, nor of any happiness in another life. Everybody that is capable of any reflection, must have observed, that this is generally the state even of devout people, whether men or women. You may see them different from other people, so far as to times and places of prayer, but generally like the rest of the world in all the other parts of their lives: that is, adding Christian devotion to a Heathen life.

 

The Great American Christian Heresies (Party 2)

 We will discuss the following false teachings when I get the time. Meanwhile, without discussion judge the spirits. Are these Biblical or not?

1. Water Baptism is NOT required for salvation (John 3:3 = John 3:5 and so many other passage but meditate on this very words of Christ. Didn't Christ confirm this by HIS OWN baptism? Didn't the Spirit descend on him as soon as he rose from the waters?)
2. Holiness is NOT required for salvation (Hebrews 12:14)
3. You don't need to have a home church to be a Christian (Ephesians 1:22-23; John 1:16)
4. You don't need to detest the world or separate from it to be saved (1 John 2:15; James 4:4; Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22; Mark 8:36; Luke 9:25)
5. ... more later...

The SEPTUAGINT is a MUST HAVE (Part 2)

Did you know that Jesus and the Apostles quoted MORE from the Septuagint (Greek Translation of the Hebrew Old Testament before the time of Christ)?

In fact, among all the Apostles, ONLY Matthew (and later St. Paul) could read Hebrew! All the other Apostles spoke either Koine Greek or Aramaic, BUT NOT HEBREW. They were mostly uneducated in Jewish Schools because they were poor fishermen who lived hand-to-mouth and could not afford the more sophisticated education that St. Paul had under Gamaliel.

When St. Paul declared that "All Scripture is God-breathed..." Paul was talking to Timothy who was HEBREW ILLITERATE (Yup, Timothy did not read nor understand Hebrew), he was referring to the Septuagint because that was the ONLY Bible that Timothy can read.

Timothy was the son of a Greek father and an uneducated Jewish mother AND grandmother. So, literally, it was the Greek that was "God-breathed". But we will discuss this in another post.

Meanwhile, take Matthew 1:23. Compare the Greek New Testament quote to the Greek Old Testament source and Matthew quoted Isaiah 7:14 almost word-for-word from the Greek. Now, compare this with the Hebrew. The word "virgin" in NOT in the Hebrew. The Hebrew word used is "young maiden" which does NOT necessarily mean "virgin" although it may in common usage. The Greek, however, is very specific! The Hebrew used "almah (young woman)" instead of "bethulah (virgin)".

How about "what Old Testament text did Jesus read in the synagogue in Luke 4:18-19?". Note that this was read IN A JEWISH SYNAGOGUE at the time of Christ! Read the passage and then read the Greek Old Testament source in Isaiah 61:1-2. IT WAS QUOTED BY CHRIST WORD-FOR-WORD in the GREEK!!! Now compare this to the Hebrew version. The Hebrew SKIPS ONE CRUCIAL phrase: "to give sight to the blind".

We can give other countless examples like Jude 14-15 was quoted entirely from the Greek Book of Enoch. This is NOT in the Hebrew but is part of the Old Testament of some of the Eastern Orthodox churches like the Ethiopian church and the Syriac churches.

THE SEPTUAGINT IS A MUST READ for any serious Bible student and especially TEACHER of the Word.

https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/

The SEPTUAGINT is a MUST HAVE (Part 1)

The Bible of the first 300 beginning years of the  Christian church was NOT the Hebrew Bible. ALL the Gentile churches and even the Jerusalem churches and even the Jewish synogogues read from the Greek translation now known as the Septuagint (LXX written in Koine Greek, the same Greek as the New Testament).

This means that the original theologies of the early churches were based on the Greek Old Testament which was later refined and completed by the Apostles Teachings (now known as the New Testament)

It is very important then for every serious student and especially TEACHER of the Bible to have a copy of the LXX to study even before they read the Protestant or Roman Catholic Old Testaments (which are based on the Hebrew versions called the Masoretic Text) to see how the early church understood their doctrines and teachings.

The ONLY compiled Bible whose Old Testament is from the Greek Septuagint is the Orthodox Study Bible published by Harper but available on Kindle.

Most people especially in countries like the Philippines will have a hard time obtaining a copy. FORTUNATELY it is FREE on the internet in PDF form which you can download anytime. The only downside is that you can download only one Old Testament book at a time (they are not yet compiled into one book).

But no matter for as long as we have UNLIMITED ACCESS to it without any fee or membership required.

Just click on the link below. God bless you in your serious study.

https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/

Clarifications on Book Names:

09 1 Reigns (or 1 Kingdoms) is 1 Samuel in the Protestant Bible

10 2 Reigns (or 2 Kingdoms) is 2 Samuel in the Protestant Bible

11 3 Reigns (or 3 Kingdoms) is 1 Kings in the Protestant Bible

12 4 Reigns, (or 4 Kingdoms) is 2 Kings in the Protestant Bible

13 1 Supplements is 1 Chronicles  in the Protestant Bible

14 2 Supplements is 2 Chronicles  in the Protestant Bible

15 1 Esdras is Ezra in the Protestant Bible

16 2 Esdras is Nehemiah in the Protestant Bible

Also, the numbering of the Psalms is different starting Psalm 9 because the LXX Psalm 9 is the Hebrew Psalm 9 & 10 all the way to Psalm 146 which is the Hebrew Psalm 147:1-11; and Psalm 147 is the Hebrew Psalm 147:12-20. Then the LXX has a Psalm 151. The Hebrew does not. The LXX also has the Apocryphal books many of which is in the Roman Catholic Bible. It may be a surprise to many that the Apostles quoted many truths from the Apocrypha which the early church considered as Scripture included in St. Paul's 2 Timothy 3:16.