Category: Myths in the Church

WHEN CHURCH IS A DISTRACTER. (Pt.2)

    WHEN CHURCH IS A DISTRACTER. (Pt.2)

Humanistic Versions Of Church Christianity.

Beliefs adopted into churchianity.
1. IMAGE OF GOD in man that is said to have survived Adam’s fall from innocence into sinfulness.

THE TRUTH: it was irreparably marred and distorted when Adam and Eve rejected eternal life from God’s ‘Tree’ of salvation and chose paranormal insight from a taboo branch of knowledge.

2. CONSCIENCE: The surviving light of God’s guidance in human conscience is said to be preserved.

TRUTH: The light of the conscience was also ruined with Adam’s fall, leaving a universal shadow only of morality in the conscience.

    WHAT REMAINS IN THE HUMAN PERSONA OF ADAM’S RACE.

• GOD’S CURSE IN ORIGINAL SIN. As the blight of God’s curse upon Adam’s descendants passed on to the human race by heredity, it left a dysfunctional trilogy of man’s body (degenerating from the womb); his soul (dead in sins and trespasses); and his spirit (his wilful persona).
• HIS WORSHIP. The original worshipping spirit of Adam was tarnished at the fall and left only a spirit prone and curious to search the mysteries of unseen powers above. This worshipful bent of humanity to fathom the divine is of itself neither virtuous, nor spiritual.

• WORSHIP MISUNDERSTOOD . The natural human desire to worship something, someone, or somebody is cunningly exploited by one’s innate wilful ego for self delusion and self justification. It thrives on the religion of the prevailing culture into which it is born. It works contrary to the spirit of truth possessed by the redeemed and is resistant in its blindness to God and Christ in Scripture.

• RELIGION. Self righteous from early infancy, humans are universally prone to self delusion. Acquiring church doctrines tends to garrison the heart against the overtures of God’s Spirit through the Scriptures and Christ’s ambassadors on earth who possess that inner drive to preach the Word. Indulging in religion, ironically buttresses this resistance to Christ and His Word. I.e. knowledge itself, even of Christian religion, usually increases the blinding deceit of the desperately wicked heart, said the prophets of old.

• This natural propensity to worship the unseen divine power is in a Western culture is called ‘Christian’, but not in other cultures with given nomenclatures of atheism, spiritism, animism, Buddhism, etcetera.

• In a Christian culture the bent to worship expresses itself in church attendance, which again is mistaken for the Spirit of God drawing souls to worship God, who are then named ‘Christians’.

• Whether in a Christian culture, or another one, this worship usually leads to the deception of self-justification, based upon indoctrinated knowledge from preachers, who for the vast majority today, are themselves merely self justifying, moralists and possess no gospel of redeeming grace to give to their congregations, but merely the gospel of knowledge, albeit biblical knowledge. As such they are educators, but cannot lift a lost soul blighted with darkness into the glorious light of the gospel of grace. This is notwithstanding their modern altar-mania, decisionism, and self perfect methods of converting those who respond to their emotive appeals and accept an unconditional free after-life eternal insurance package.
• The natural worship of the first man in his innocence, did not lead him to accept God’s offer of eternal life through the Tree provided.

• Eve, the first woman in Eden, found it easier to worship paranormal phenomena and voices of the gods, despite her knowing that God’s words offered her eternal life from the eternal Tree of Life.

• Eve had the knowledge of and the memory of “hearing the Word,” but it did not draw her to God, without faith, a gift of God’s grace to the wholehearted seeker. She forfeited eternal life by choosing more religious knowledge and the lust to dabble in the paranormal. The average church adherent or member does the same and her male counterpart capitulates to the status quo just like Adam.

WHEN CHURCH IS A DISTRACTER. (Pt.2)

SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES: Did Jesus Baptize?

Truth is Stranger than Fiction: Baptism
Matthew 28
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into GALILEE; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
8 And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
9 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.
10 Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into GALILEE , and there shall they see me.
11 Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.
12 And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
13 Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.
14 And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.
15 So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.
16 Then the eleven disciples went away into GALILEE , into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.  
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FOOTNOTES
Matthew 28:7; 10; 16. Jerusalem was the location of his passion, resurrection, forty days’ appearances; apostolic commission and ascension from the Mount of Olives nearby . Cp. Footnote to verse 20.
Matthew 28:10
Matthew 28:16
Matthew 28:19. The apostles did not practise a threefold invocation, seemingly unaware of its decree. Harmonizing the Gospels and Acts there was only one Great Commission given to the apostles. Zechariah 14 predicted Christ’s return to Mt. Olivet where Luke also locates both ascension and second coming. Luke 24; Acts 1. St. John too, focused on Jerusalem, notwithstanding his Epilogue, chapter 21.

SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES: Did Jesus Baptize?

MYTH OF GRACE BY ONE’S OWN FAITH

MYTH OF GRACE GAINED BY MAN’S OWN FAITH
Can anyone come to Christ at any time by their own faith unconditionally? Is biblical faith by grace or is His grace by our own faith? Does the reader merely choose one verse he wants to believe and pragmatically override the rest of context, or have you honestly searched the scriptures about this matter? Does God first awaken then teach, then convict, and finally grant the gifts of faith and repentance? Search the Scriptures. Goats and tares outnumber the few remaining sheep who have tolerated the great falling away and apostate preachers who motivate the goats by tickling their ears.

1. No man can come I, except the Father which has sent me draw him:. John 6:44
Is one’s own childlike faith sufficient regardless of knowledge?

2. Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto me. John 6:45
Is freewill exercise of choice sufficient a response for Christ?

3. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. (John 6:65.)
Is Jesus unusually high standard sound offensive?

4. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (John 6:66.)
Are there prerequisite actions needed before God accepts belief as valid?

MYTH OF GRACE BY ONE’S OWN FAITH

Church Rite Not Jesus’.

Church Rite Not Jesus’.
The witty inventions of Constantine outlived the Roman Empire and the passages of the Greek New Testament manuscripts that were changed to agree with his sacraments continue to be printed in even the Protestant Bibles today.

These are the ones that appear in the gospel of Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:16, John 3:22/26, and John 6:51-58. These four change the whole meaning Jesus message. While the first three passages had only the word baptize added to each the fourth had had three words inserted: flesh, blood, and drink. The latter introduced the Emperor’s Eucharist by turning the last eight verses on the Bread of Life upside down.

The Galilean apostolic commission at the very end of the first two gospels quoted above, conflicted with each other. Matthew invoked three names of the godhead (trinity), in a rite unknown to the apostles at Pentecost who never practised such an invocation, using only the name of Jesus Christ. Mark’s baptismal commission not only differed greatly from Matthew in its compulsion under threat of damnation, but is generally discredited by most of the Christian literati as a substitute for the lost original ending of the book.

As Jesus and his apostles never practised a baptismal rite on believers in their forty months together, Peter’s rite at Pentecost merely revived John’s baptism, despite Jesus abandoning it after he began his four years of ministry. Philip, Ananias and Paul used Peter’s baptismal rite, each differing from the other in varying nuances. Peter never again repeated the link between water and remission, though Ananias of Damascus took a more extreme position making water the agent of remission, similar to the water of separation in Numbers 19. Paul never endorsed that assertion and in Caesarea and Samaria the Lord showed that Peter’s and Philip’s baptismal rite had nothing to do with Jesus’ baptism of fire concomitant with regeneration.

In fact Paul later abandoned Peter’s baptismal rite (1 Corinthians 1:17). Instead he majored on the one baptism needed, of which John the Baptist and Jesus had prophesied. (See: Acts 1; Luke 24; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 4:5; Matthew 3:11 etc). Paul’s use of the word in the epistles allude to the baptism of the Spirit. Even Peter (1 Peter 3:21) did likewise referring to the operation of the Holy Ghost through the power of the resurrected Lord in figurative metaphorical usage.

This was a problem for Constantine so in the third reference above (John 3:22 /26) one word was added to the rumour that either Jesus or the Twelve were baptizing believers in competition with his cousin John the Baptist. Completely unsubstantiated by the four gospels the rumour was partially dispelled a few verses later (John 4:1-2).
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The prophecies of John the Baptist, Jesus, the ascension angel, and the Old Testament (Zechariah 14) establish four important things:-

1. The place of the Lord’s ascension was Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives (Mt. Olivet),
2. This also was the place of the only apostolic commission which was given by Luke in Luke 24, and Acts 1, and corroborated by John 19-20, notwithstanding the Epilogue chapter (John 21).
3. The sole apostolic commission was not from Galilee as posited by Constantine by changing Jerusalem to the word Galilee six times (Matthew 26;28;Mark 14;16), but from Judea’s Mount of Olives by Jerusalem
4. The baptism of fire was intended to supersede John’s baptism of water, confirmed by prophecy of John and Jesus.

Church Rite Not Jesus’.

Truth About 21st C Christianity (3)

Restoring Bible Truths of The Reformation.

The Reformation opposed the religion of humanism posing as Christianity in the church. 500 years have passed since Luther’s 1517 Wittenberg declaration, but the church of the 21st C still suffers from pervasive humanism in every quarter. The 18th C. outbreak of Christian humanism in the Enlightenment inevitably led to its 19th C pandemic in freewill America.

1. Mankind, albeit religious or not, is unable to trust his Maker even in the face of miracles.
2. Vainly the intelligentsia will try to prove that the positive mindset is faith
3. Humanism in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment claimed that universally mankind is innately good.
4. Humanists characterize humans as possessing natural created ability of mind, and heart to understand and respond to God’s overtures if they so desire. They claim such seekers may do so without the need of divine grace beforehand.
5. Thus man is portrayed as the master of his own destiny and his course is alone determined by freewill choice.

Truth About 21st C Christianity (3)

Witty Church Inventions of 4th Century.

THE WITTY INVENTIONS OF THE EARTHLY CHURCH.
The writer acknowledges the vast difference between the visible earthly church (churches) of man and the invisible body of Christ, the true church comprised of the saints. The latter are those whom God has regenerated by His Spirit at His behest rather than by mere human design and persuasion.

Many are still looking for the true church, as they discover the flaws of each church evaluated. They will never find it, because it does not exist. The word itself is not in the original New Testament (Koine Greek) and at six New Testament English translations omit it altogether.

It was invented by Emperor Constantine using 3rd C Latin. The same man formed the first church as the new religion he wanted for his Roman Empire to displace its eclectic pagan idolatry. Using it as a tool to win both sections of a divided empire in a state of civil war and general decline. What he established, however, was so successful it outlived the empire and the rages of the centuries to survive until this present day with over two billion members in its multifarious organized separate bodies.

Of nearly three thousand separate denominations the ones invented by Constantine seventeen hundred years ago still predominate as the foundation for various others. Each of these methods, rituals or rites is claimed to give entry to the highway of heaven. One thing they have in common is the universal ease with which they may be accomplished. Apart from personal submission to the man and the method required the key catalyst is said to be vocal affirmation, often repeating words supplied by the minister.

The witty inventions of Constantine outlived the Roman Empire and the passages of the Greek New Testament manuscripts that were changed to agree with his sacraments continue to be printed in even the Protestant Bibles today.

These are the ones that appear in the gospel of Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:16, John 3:22/26, and John 6:51-58. These four change the whole meaning Jesus message. While the first three passages had only the word baptize added to each the fourth had had three words inserted: flesh, blood, and drink.
The latter introduced the Emperor’s Eucharist by turning the last eight verses on the Bread of Life upside down. The Galilean apostolic commission at he very end of the first two gospels quoted above conflicted with each other.

Matthew invoked three names of the godhead (trinity), in a rite unknown to the apostles at Pentecost who never practised such an invocation, using only the name of Jesus Christ.

Mark’s baptismal commission not only differed greatly from Matthew in its compulsion under threat of damnation, but is generally discredited by most of the Christian literati as a substitute for the lost original ending of the book.

As Jesus and his apostles never practised a baptismal rite on believers in their forty months together, Peter’s rite at Pentecost merely revived John’s baptism, despite Jesus abandoning it after he began his four years of ministry.

This was a problem for Constantine so in the third reference above (John 3:22 /26) one word was added to the rumour that Jesus was making more disciples than John. Whist there was no doubt about the truth of increasing success by Jesus and the Twelve there is not so much as a hint that they were baptizers anywhere or at anytime, in the four gospels, during their three and a half years together.

Contrary to the rumour heard by John’s disciples: Jesus had never competed with his cousin John the Baptist before his imprisonment by Herod. However, the rumour that either Jesus, or the Twelve were baptizing was partially dispelled a few verses later (John 4:1-2) by Constantine to avoid too much contradiction. He who had muddied the Greek New Testament’s two remaining extant manuscripts to support his new sacrament now used rumour to do so.

The prophecies of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:11 etc.) and the Old Testament (Zechariah 14) establish with the angel’s ascension witness two important things:-

1. The place of the Lord’s ascension was Jerusalem’s Mt. Olivet,
2. This also was the place of the apostolic commission given by Luke in Luke 24, and Acts 1, and corroborated by John 19-20, notwithstanding the Epilogue chapter (John 21).

CONCLUSION.
There never were three separate Great Commissions, only one and it was issued in the apostolic commission recorded in Luke 24; John 20; and Acts 1 and issued from Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives (Mt. Olivet) near Bethany”s slopes. There were not two ascension mounts 60 miles apart: one in Judea and the other in distant Galilee (on an unnamed mountain).In fulfilment of prophecy: by Jesus, Zechariah the prophet, and the ascension angel, it was from Judea’s Mount of Olives adjacent to Jerusalem, the place of Christ’s closest friends; his messianic grand entry into the city; his last supper; his passion; his burial; his resurrection; his conversion of the Eleven; his forty days appearing to most of the one hundred and nine others converted; and his ascension back into heaven.

There never were two other watery apostolic commissions issued from a place two days journey to the North of Jerusalem, despite Constantine’s changing Jerusalem into the word Galilee six times in four chapters Matthew 26; Matthew 28; Mark 14; Mark 16. Apart from this subtle word swap, neither baptismal commission holds credibility because :
1. If either ending of the book of Matthew or the book Mark, respectively, be homogenous with the rest of the author’s book why was each book void of any such practice by the Lord and the Twelve after Jesus submitted himself to the water rite of John last prophet of the Law and began his ministry of the kingdom?
2. If there had been a Galilean baptismal rite commanded why was there such a contradictory differennnce between each of the two, the second being militantly compelling under threat of hellfire.
3. If both were not the creation of Constantine and his team of scholars re-scribing both Latin and Greek New Testament manuscript Codices for his 50 inaugural Church of Rome Bibles, then why had the Eleven never heard or used a trinitarian baptismal invocation instead of Peter’s baptismal rite invoking Christ’s name?
4. Though at first glance Acts 2:38 Peter’s actions seem to confirm and ratify the existence of a Galilean apostolic commission, this is far from the truth. Peter, known for his impulsiveness and rebuked by Jesus for having expressed the mindset of Satan did not cease to be impetuous after his conversion on Resurrection Day. Forty days later he misled a prayer meeting of the one hundred and twenty into electing Matthias prematurely as the twelfth apostle in place of Judas Iscariot. Now fifty days after his conversion and only ten days since he was instructed otherwise, he suddenly decided to restore the water baptismal rite of John the Baptist additionally invoking the name of Jesus Christ on the candidates.
5. Peter set the precedent for the Jerusalem church, which insisted upon circumcision, John’s water rite, and keeping the Law for membership. By demanding such qualifying conditions for saving grace Peter created a problem which neither he nor the Jerusalem church could handle, inevitably leading to division and misunderstanding between Jewish and Gentile Christians; between Paul and Barnabus (Galatians 2); between Paul and Peter(Galatians 2); and between Jerusalem church members themselves (Acts 15).

Peter never again made the qualifying demand of water for remission and changed his position several times, finally concluding then rite was only a figure, figurative of justification through the power of Christ’s resurrection (1 Peter 3:21).

Paul also varied the rite and finally discarded it as a distraction (1 Corinthians 1:17) thereafter using the term to describe what he wrote (1 Corinthians 12:13 and Ephesians 4:5) in his epistles of the baptism of the Spirit, (simultaneous with regeneration after Pentecost), for which the Eleven had to wait fifty days after their regeneration on Ascension Day (Luke 24; John 20).
http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/witty-church-inventions/ ‎

The Truth About Christian Baptism

TWO OF ROME’S SEVEN SACRAMENTS STILL IN THE PROTESTANT BIBLE.
With the advent of Gutenberg’s 15th C printing press the 16th C Puritan Fathers of the Reformation began printing Bibles in the national tongues of nearby regions. Precious Greek manuscripts came to Europe, when Islam invaded Constantinople in the early 15th C. Thus the Renaissance Christian humanists gained unprecedented access to the original Koine Greek Scriptures. One of these was Erasmus who published a Greek New Testament about 1519, only two years after Martin Luther began the Reformation.

This opened the eyes of scholars and translators to five of the seven Latin sacraments that did not appear in the original Greek. They had been inserted by the Roman Emperor Constantine shortly after ascending the throne in the early 4th C. He had instructed Eusebius and his team of literati to revise the Old Latin Bible and scroll fifty new Latin Bibles endorsing his seven priestly sacraments for the inaugural founding of his Church of Rome.

However, the first German, English, and French Bibles printed included only the rites of water, wine and wafer integral to the two ordinances found in the Greek Testament of Erasmus.

During this study we will look at these two rites and the disparities between the three apostolic commissions found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. Not only was each commission different from the others, but two of them were , in hindsight, never endorsed by the Saviour during the entire length of his earthly ministry before his arrest. While this can be verified from any of the three Synoptic Gospels, it is also true of the fourth Gospel, notwithstanding one rumour to the contrary in John 3.

The Truth About Christian Baptism

COMPLETING THE REFORMATION 500 YEARS LATER.

COMPLETING THE REFORMATION 500 YEARS LATER.
The Church of Rome’s water wine and wafer still divides her ‘separated brethren’
1. The reader’s reaction to this article is dependent upon whether or not he is totally captive to the Man of the Book, or to a denominational movement.
2. The primacy of Jesus’ practice and teaching during his life-time ministry is more sacrosanct than those of flawed human apostles; or early Roman Church Fathers (apostolic fathers) in the post apostolic period of the 2nd C and 3rd C.
3. Whoever thinks that is not the case has been indoctrinated with one form of ecclesiasticism or another, and equates the infallibility of early apostolic practice with that of Christ.
4. The life, sayings and teachings of Jesus Christ during his forty months’ mission was not superseded by any of the apostles or what they wrote.
5. The harmony of the four gospels must be centred upon the life, practice, and sayings of the Lord Jesus Christ wherever there appears conflict.
6. Humanity will alone be judged by the sayings and words of Christ, not those of the apostles. This applies to both the goats and the sheep, the former at the Great White Throne and the latter at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
7. Since the 19th C Bible churches have overreacted to apostate Higher Bible Criticism and gone into bibliolatrous literalism. Thus they have elevated the actions and words of the apostles to supersede those of the Lord Jesus. Each church movement has often clung to its own unique version of baptism and Lord’s Supper as its distinctive articles of faith that justify its separatist cause.
8. There is no conflict between the Lord’s practice before or after the cross. Students normally learn to harmonize the differences in the data of the four gospel authors, by tolerating their recording errors. Yet when it comes to the obvious discrepancies of the Galilean Commission each turns a blind eye because apostate Christendom wants to cling to the water-wine-wafer paradigm as methods of controlling entry and exit to their respective folds.

9. Of the three apostolic commissions only one is consistent with the prophecies of Zechariah; John the Baptist; the practice of Christ; and the Mt. Olivet record of the ascension. It is found in St. Luke 24; St. John 20; and Acts 1.

All focus on the events around Jerusalem and its adjoining Mount of Olives where Jesus often slept at night in the Garden of Gethsemane. The other two apostolic commissions were said to have been issued on an unnamed mountain in Galilee, 60 miles to the north. Suddenly added to the end of Matthew and Mark they leave the reader with a watery imposition.

Jesus was baptized by John (the last prophet of the Law) as an obedient Jew of the tribe of David (Judah) at age thirty. Leaving Jordan’s water his heavenly Father immediately anointed him audibly and visibly with the Spirit for his kingdom ministry. Therewith the line of demarcation was drawn between his old role as a Jew under the Levite priesthood and his new role as High Priest of the kingdom. Thenceforth his one mission was to fulfil his destiny on the cross, in his resurrection, and his final ascension forty days later.

John the Baptist and the ascension angel predicted Jesus would baptize members of his kingdom with fire, not water. Once he commenced his kingdom ministry he neither commanded nor practiced water baptism. This is most obvious even in the books of Matthew and Mark during his four year itinerary.

10. Thus the second and third apostolic commissions recorded in Galilee did not supersede the official Olivet ascension commission.

11. Many scholars from the broad spectrum of theology doubt the origin of Mark 16: 9-20, which does not appear in the most ancient extant Greek manuscripts.

12. Bible readers will also note that Matthew’s Trinitarian invocatory blessing was never adopted by the apostles in the baptisms in Luke’s book of Acts. This indicates that they were unaware of such a Galilean edict. They followed Peter’s water baptism at Pentecost, not Jesus’ for he had never baptized anyone during their time with him. His commission from Jerusalem did not order them to baptize in water. Phillip, Ananias and Paul using Peter’s precedent followed John the Baptist’s rite invoking the one name of Jesus Christ. However, they differed with each other’s administration of John’s baptism. Both Peter and Paul made radical changes: the former never again preached baptismal regeneration and the latter abandoned baptism after Corinth focusing instead on the baptism of the Spirit into the body of Christ (1 Cor.12:13).

13. From the 3rd C Roman paganistic customs and worship started to creep into Christian gatherings. Particularly was this so after the first church building was erected. Previously they had only met secretly in homes. Leaders began to use the title of priest and bishop to compete with idolatrous Roman religions. After three centuries of rabid pogroms and burnt earth persecution the Christians were given tolerance in the 4th C by the new emperor Constantine. Whereas there had been a subtle creeping change to formalism in the 3rd C, now came radical change to litany, liturgy and enforced sacraments for the masses by Constantine’s new Church of Rome.

14. The emperor’s right hand man was Bishop Eusebius, credited as the father of Church History. We should remember that this history was not Christian, but the history of the Church of Rome. Indeed all that the Church Fathers (apostolic Church Fathers) wrote was strongly slanted towards Romanism and heresy. Yet most seminaries and Bible colleges turn a convenient blind eye to this fact because of the shades of ecumenism and apostasy.

15. Most Protestant churches still retain Rome’s remaining sacramental doctrine without realizing its origin. Of the 2,800 denominations (Barratt 1970) communion and baptism has often been the cause of divisive sectarian separatism spawning hundreds upon hundreds of new denominations.

16. As 16th C reformers translated the original tongue of the New Testament into English they purged five of the seven Roman sacraments from the Latin New Testament not found in the Greek original. The Old Latin and Vulgate Latin Bible of the Roman Church had been in vogue for thirteen hundred years. The seven sacraments were added by Emperor Constantine to his fifty new Latin Bibles to authorize his compulsory nationalization of Christianity heralded at the inaugural founding of his Roman Church about 311 AD.

17. Because two of the seven sacraments were in the Greek manuscripts, the humanist scholar Erasmus included them in the first published Greek New Testament. The French publisher Stephanus and Elzevir failed to challenge this and the Textus Receptus of Puritan Bible translators left them intact.

18. Luther, Tyndale, Calvin, and Zwingli all differed with each other in their respective sacramental practice of water-wine-wafer. Each was ill at ease with the two surviving Roman rites. This caused division, disunity and disarray in the disparate Eucharistic practice. Rejecting transubstantiation, they wavered between consubstantiation, and mere memorial remembrance. In baptism they hesitantly selected baptismal regeneration, infant baptism, or believers’ baptism, while the method was sprinkling, pouring, or immersing candidates.

19. Nevertheless, one thing is held in common: the two Roman sacraments are good tools of administrative control. They are used to determine who will gain membership, or who needs to be expelled from membership of each religious clique, called the church, (ecclesia) a Latin word not found in the Greek New Testament and omitted by Tyndale in the first English publication of 1526. This so infuriated the Catholics and Anglicans that they burned or banned it before martyring him at the stake. Only when the word was replaced in the text did the English Church allow its publication. In the Koine Greek (ekklesia) means a ‘called out to assemble or congregate’. The early Christians were called out by God to leave the Jewish church at first, then to forsake the Roman church in the 4th C.

20. Early Reformers from the 13th C onwards had begun to abandon Roman ecclesiastic traditions and rites practiced since Emperor Constantine’s forcible takeover of Christianity.

21. The Waldensian, Albigensian, Hussite, Lollard, and Huguenot Christians were reformers before Luther posted his 1517 thesis of ‘the just shall live by faith’. Humanist scholars like Erasmus became involved with the Reformers’ quest in the 15th C

22. The great hurdles to anyone daring to complete the long overdue Reformation of the 16th C seem immoveable, but Luther’s unending echo of holy writ cannot be silenced: the ‘just shall live by faith’, not by water, wine or wafer.

CONCLUDING CHALLENGE
Many fanatically defend inerrancy of Scripture, but miss the final arbiter and filter of all Scripture: the very words of Christ himself; his practice and precepts during his forty months stay on earth before his death.

1. BELIEVER AND UNBELIEVER WILL BE JUDGED BY THESE WORDS
John 12:48 He that rejects me, and receives not my words, hath one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

2. THE MOST IMPORTANT APOSTLE: No other apostle equates to his infallibility.
Hebrews 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;

3. READING SCRIPTURE BUT MISSING THE CORNERSTONE OF TRUTH
John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

4. RARELY WILL A BELIEVER DO THIS.
Acts 17:11 (the Berean believers)…they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

5. ONLY MT OLIVET APOSTOLIC COMMISSION IS VALID (not the Galilean)
Acts 1:10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; 11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. 12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day’s journey.

Zechariah 14:4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof…

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT.
1. During his 40 months’ ministry before his arrest neither Jesus nor the Twelve baptized others. The rumour in John 3 was mostly dispelled in John 4. The rumour was never endorsed anywhere else in the gospels and the Lord disavowed it by immediately leaving the area where he had been fellowshipping with his cousin John.

2. After his death and at the resurrection on the first day, then the fortieth day he gave the substance of his apostolic commission. Luke 24; John 20; Acts 1.
3. Only one commission was given and it was not on an unknown mountain in Galilee, but at Jerusalem in Judea 60 miles south.
a. This commission confirmed that Christ’s baptism of kingdom believers would be in fire not water, as prophesied by John the Baptist in Matthew 3 etcetera.
b. At no time anywhere recorded in the four gospel narrative of those 40 months did Jesus either baptize in water or command the Twelve to do so.
c. The Mount of Olives was confirmed and verified as the ascension mount to which he will descend in his return at the end of the age. See Zechariah 14:4 and Acts 1:11
d. St. Matthew’s Galilean baptismal commission invoked the trinity, but this form was not used by the four baptizers in Acts, indicating that the Eleven were unaware of its existence.
e. St. Mark’s Galilean baptismal commission was radically different in its compulsion and penalty for lack thereof. More importantly, historians, academics and even conservative scholars agree that the original vss. 9-20 had been lost and replaced by an unknown hand. The last half of St. Mark is missing from the most ancient extant manuscripts.
The geographic placement and content of both second and third apostolic commissions 60 miles distant in Galilee were:
i. contrary to the prophecy of John the Baptist, in Matthew 3:11
ii. contrary to the prophecy of John the Baptist in Mark 1:8
iii. contrary to the prophecy of John the Baptist in Luke 3:16
iv. contrary to the words of Christ in Acts 1:5
v. contrary to angels prophesying the place of His return Acts 1:11
vi. contrary to Zechariah’s prophecy of His return Zechariah 14:4
SPECIAL NOTE:
Ironically, the very two gospels that hastily close with a baptismal imprimatur, prophesy that Jesus would not baptize with water but with the Holy Ghost. It also places serious questions over Peter’s sudden institution of baptismal regeneration when Jesus had neither baptized them or any other candidate for His kingdom of heaven.
Furthermore, if Peter was infallible, as some would claim, why did he immediately abandon baptismal regeneration, (making baptism a condition of remission) for other changing forms of the Jewish water rite that the Jerusalem assembly demanded alongside circumcision for membership?

At Samaria Phillip’s baptism did not trigger the new birth. Only when Peter and John went there did the believers receive the Spirit.
Peter in Caesarea witnessed the same scenario when Gentiles were both regenerated and baptized with the Spirit during his sermon without any water rite.

In his second sermon in Jerusalem (Acts 3-4) Peter solely preached on the baptism of the Spirit. He actually avoided the Jewish water rite as he preached.

Paul’s emphasis after Ephesus and Corinth became the baptism of the Spirit and he appears to have gradually ceased using the water rite (1 Corinthians 1:17; 12:13; Ephesians 5:4). Indeed his emphasis in Galatians, Romans, and Colossians Paul alludes primarily to the baptism of fire, not water. The two accounts of Paul’s own baptism by Ananias of Damascus in Acts reveal the link between early Jewish baptismal regeneration, John the Baptist, and the priestly “water of separation for remission of sins. Cp. Numbers 19:9 (“for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin”).

Water baptism, implemented by Peter, was usually preceded by the baptism of fire. That is the Spirit’s work of grace in the heart of the seeker occurring before the Jewish rite was applied.

With John the Baptist, the last prophet of the Law, confession of sins always preceded his baptism of the candidate, though Old Testament remission had never been a blotting out of iniquities or expiation for they were remembered again on the Day of Atonement and re-confessed. In the kingdom’s atonement through Christ’s body that bore our sins to give the believer his righteousness, those iniquities would be “remembered no more”.

COMPLETING THE REFORMATION 500 YEARS LATER.

CHRISTENDOM’S CHAOS: WATER, WINE, & WAFER.

THE CHAOS OF CHRISTENDOM OVER WATER WINE AND WAFER. (Part 1)
1. The readability of this radical article is dependent upon whether or not the reader is totally captive to any one church, or the Man of the Book, Jesus Christ.

2. The primacy of Jesus’ practice and teaching during his life-time ministry is more sacrosanct than those of flawed human apostles; or early Roman Church Fathers (apostolic fathers) in the post apostolic period of the 2nd C and 3rd C.

3. Whoever thinks that is not the case has been indoctrinated with one form of ecclesiasticism or another, and equates the infallibility of early apostolic practice with that of Christ.

4. The life, sayings and teachings of Jesus Christ during his forty months’ mission was not superseded by others writing after his death in the posthumous period before he rose from the grave.

5. There should be no conflict between his practice before Calvary and the Great Commission to the Eleven. If there are two opposing apostolic commissions in the first five books of the New Testament the only one acceptable is that consistent with the New Testament predictions by John the last prophet of the Law; the Lord Jesus himself, and Old Testament prophets.

6. This position may seem radically wrong to most believers who have been so indoctrinated from birth with the religion of Rome’s water, wine and wafer of any Roman styled sacramental denomination. Whether in the East or the West this position will also appear disturbing to Rome’s ‘separated brethren in Protestant or non Roman churches that comprise Christendom’s 2,800 denominations (Barratt 1970).

7. The reformers exiting from Roman Catholicism did not go far enough. They dumped 5 of The Holy Roman Empire’s seven sacraments added by the Emperor to the Latin Bible, but failed to examine Constantine’s 4th C Greek yet for inconsistencies in reaming two. Those water, wine and wafer rites caused division, disunity and disarray in disparate practices of transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and Zwinglian memorialism.

8. The student researcher of the Scriptures, like the Bereans is urged to ‘search the Scriptures to see if these things be so’. Hasty or indignant rejection of this short thesis as mere ideology is caused by addiction to one apostle or another; saturation by ecclesiastical tradition; pontificating clergy, or dishonest pragmatic intellectualization.

9. Of the five Roman Church’s sacraments the early Reformers from the 14th C Renaissance onwards began to abandon the ecclesiastic traditions, precedents, and practice of the thousand years after Constantine’s compulsory nationalization of Christianity.

10. The Waldensian, Albigensian, Hussite, Lollard, and Huguenot Christians were reformers even before Luther posted his 1517 thesis of ‘the just shall live by faith’. Even humanist scholars like Erasmus became involved with the Reformers’ quest.

TO BE CONTINUED.

CHRISTENDOM’S CHAOS: WATER, WINE, & WAFER.

EXPOSING CHURCH MYTHS WITH BIBLE TRUTHS. (1)

MYTH: ORIGINAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. Adam fell from ‘a righteous state’ when he sinned.

1. THE TRUTH: Though Adam’s succumbing to the wiles of a woman provoked God’s endemic curse on mankind and the creation, nowhere in either Testament is it described as a “fall”. He succumbed to Eve and Satan’s temptation to reject God’s offer of eternal life. But he did not FALL from righteousness, but rejected the righteousness of faith.

2. THE TRUTH: Adam was created in a state of innocence without virtue or vice.

MYTH: ADAM MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD was holy and righteous.

3. THE TRUTH Adam had neither original righteousness nor the INDWELLING Spirit of holiness and righteousness. God however, was WITH him until he was exiled from His presence. God was WITH Israel of the Exodus, but His Spirit only WITHIN Moses, Joshua and Caleb. Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and Abram were some of the few who not only walked with God in primordial time, but within whom the Spirit of God dwelled by grace

4. THE TRUTH: God is tripartite and Adam was created uniquely as a tripartite being. God is triune:- the Father, the Word (The Son), and the Spirit (1 John 5:7) and He said, “Let us make man in our own image.” Thus Adam had a threefold existence but is one being: body, soul, and spirit and he also reflects each decision and action within himself. He confers within himself, his sense of humour enables him to laugh at himself and at others. He intellectualizes with himself and then takes rational action. These imprints of God’s image are over and above the basic instinctive appetites and senses, and they are unique to humans in the animal kingdom.

5. THE TRUTH: Adam was made a terrestrial creature from the earth itself, but unlike all other creatures he possessed more than animal instincts, appetites, and senses. He had a plurality of being which was exceptional among creatures.

6. THE TRUTH: God wanted fellowship with Adam, but he needed more than a state of innocence wherein he was able to hear God’s instructions. Fellowship is not a one sided affair. Thus the Lord placed the regenerating fruit of the tree-of-life should he desire to enter into fellowship with his Lord and Master. But alas he conspired instead with his wife to sample the KNOWLEDGE of the gods and the ethereal powers from the ‘prince and power of the air,’ who is the ‘god’ of this world.

7. THE TRUTH: The doctrine of Adam’s original righteousness was hatched by the emerging Church of Rome in the 3rd century at the time of building the first church and the first priest was ordained. This myth with other pagan beliefs of Rome has been perpetuated down through the ages.

8. THE TRUTH: When Emperor Constantine’s ‘Church of Rome was finally inaugurated about 311 AD the mythical ‘water of regeneration’ in his compulsory mass baptisms were said to remove ‘original sin’ and restore ‘original righteousness’ to the baptized. This myth has been perpetuated down through the millennia to present day Christendom.

9. THE TRUTH: ADAM.HEARD GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS? Though God talked to Adam this did not equate to righteousness. Though Adam was at fist innocent without sin his innocence was not righteousness. God talked to unrighteous prophets and false prophets, Balaam the soothsayer being one example.God can and will use what and whom he will, even the unrighteous Balaam, just as he used the early Twelve disciples of Christ before they were converted on the first day of the resurrection. Judas Iscariot heard Jesus pair him with a fellow disciple to go as a twosome to preach, heal, and deliver. Yet borrowing the power of the NAME neither justified him or made him righteous. God was with him for a season, then later left him to Satan’s devices.

EXPOSING CHURCH MYTHS WITH BIBLE TRUTHS. (1)