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/
