Paul's Passing Thoughts

I overheard a conversation the other day that struck me. Someone was talking with another person about some guy who stated the following thesis: disprove the resurrection of Christ, and you destroy Christianity. This is true: our faith stands or falls on the resurrection.

Full stop. I want to begin by pointing out that the true faith is a remnant in many ways. I want to point out that our kingdom gets very little respect in this kingdom. A question: regarding documented history, other than the Bible, what do we know about the resurrection of Christ? Answer: absolutely nothing.
What does this tell us?

It tells us that this world kingdom under-reports news about God’s kingdom or excludes it altogether. It’s fake news before fake news was cool. It tells us that God has left us a remnant of truth in all of this called, “The Bible.” If not for the Bible, the Resurrection, for which we pin all our hope, would not only be old news, it wouldn’t be news at all. But God has not left us without a witness.

God left us with a unique witness that requires our participation in the validation of it. Be sure of this: men have distorted the testimony God mandated. Nevertheless, though I will not get into the complexity of it here, God’s testimony, for lack of a better term, “The Bible,” is written in a certain way that makes the distortions of it identifiable. The doctrine of justification by new birth is a concept that is self-confirming because of its unique elements and can even be accurately passed down from generation to generation orally. Most traditions passed down orally are subject to change, but the unique elements of justification by new birth make it immune from this fate. The written record of Scripture is a strong companion to the oral tradition. In both, unless the presentation of justification by new birth is completely reworked, error in discernable because of its foundational elements.

let me give a minute example. Sometimes I will be reading a given Bible translation and the tenses used, or the idea projected in the passage, contradicts an element of justification by new birth. In every case further study using Greek lexicons and other study tools will verify my suspicions that the translation is skewed.

At any rate, since the Bible is the only record we have of the resurrection, a denial of the Bible’s truth is a denial of the faith. Yes, a debate about inspired content included in the Bible is a valid debate because the fundamentals of justification by new birth determine what is true, not what church minions wanted to put in there. NO worthy work on the transmission of the Bible has been done to date. There is much work to do and much uncharted territory for those who believe in justification by new birth, not the false gospel of justification by faith. And, this will have to be done by the laity and not those brainwashed by church orthodoxy. Remember, the vast majority of English translations were published by proponents of justification by faith and that is a huge problem. The whole church system, whether Catholic or Protestant, are lies built upon a foundation of lies. In both cases as stated by John MacArthur sycophant Rick Holland, “…Bad Grammar Makes Good Theology.” That’s because, supposedly, the plain sense of Scripture isn’t really the plain sense because the great unwashed have no sense.

Likewise, just like the world, the church, which is just another political entity in this kingdom full of kingdoms vying for power, has created a vast documented history depicting what it wants to promote. Horrible, murdering superstitionists like the Puritans are presented as spiritual heroes. The church is rivaled by no one regarding the number of people it has murdered; not Stalin, nor anyone else. Yet, it is proud of its history. And as stated in the soon to be published “The Church Lie,” church history is truly that, church history, and has no connection whatsoever to Christ’s New Covenant assembly. So, did God leave us a remnant of true kingdom history? Yes, the book of Acts, and that’s pretty much it—it’s a remnant.

We have no excuse in being led astray. God left us a remnant to be read and considered by those who will be held accountable independently: YOU, and you alone. Church leaders who claim authority over us will not be allowed to speak on our behalf in the end no matter how much we appeased them out of fear for man, not God. The whole notion of church authority is absurd, if not laughable.

Now back to the resurrection. Christ didn’t need to be resurrected; he did it for us. Specifically, so we can be resurrected…in this life. Few religions deny the resurrection of Christ; most redefine its purpose. Christ died so that we can follow Him in death. Christ was resurrected so we can follow Him in resurrection. Christ did this to offer a legitimate life transformation to all people. Repentance, the gateway to salvation, is a sobering decision; it is forsaking the present you for what God will make you, it is a transformation of state of being. This alone is the reason many draw back from being saved; that is, other than rejecting a gospel presentation that they don’t buy into.

You can deny the resurrection, which is tantamount to denying that God has left a witness, or you can redefine it, which is what church does. Church defines the resurrection as confirmation that Christ’s life was worthy enough for Him to be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind. This denies the specific reason for the resurrection. Christ wasn’t resurrected to prove anything, He was resurrected so we can be resurrected…in this life.

Problem is, this truth negates the need for church which likes to talk about “forgiveness” a lot. “Forgiveness” keeps the church in business. This word carries the idea that someone is loved rather than punished for sin. The sin isn’t gone, it is merely forgiven. It also implies that forgiveness is an ongoing need. This does not fit with justification by new birth. When it gets right down to it, the use of the word “forgiveness” in the Bible is a poor choice in the translation (probably deliberate). Because of the resurrection, sin is ended, and the saved person is legitimately holy.

The saved person is holy because he/she is a new person. The old person died with Christ. The Greek word is “aphesis” and its synonyms are very problematic for justification by faith. The word means “freedom” and “pardon.” One is not continually set free; you are either free or not free. Regarding pardon, it is a pardon based on the fact that the person is really innocent of all sin, not a pardon regardless of the person’s guilt. It’s a pardon because the wrong person was convicted, viz, the one who died with Christ leading to a pardon for those resurrected with Christ.

Failure to love as a believer is another subject that will not be addressed in this post. But suffice to say for now that if forgiveness is just a covering with a righteousness that is not our own, we need a sacrament system because we are not really free…

…and that sacrament system is church.

paul