WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?
Part II
Lea Sylvester
In
Part
I of “What
Do You Believe,” we saw how
Christianity has been “transformed” over the
ages. Today, it is hard to determine even
WHO is a Christian, much less WHAT
Christianity is if we just look at what the
various churches are practicing and
teaching!
A friend from India who is a
Christian was so very excited to have the
opportunity to move to the United States of
America, mainly because she had been told
that the USA was a “Christian” nation.
She was perplexed, however; when she
arrived, to see that she couldn't tell the
difference between Christians and others.
She said, “Christians in the United States
look like everyone else, they talk like
everyone else, they live like everyone else,
they dress like everyone else , they live
like everyone else and it should be easy
to recognize them...I am very disturbed
about this.”
I agree.
Jesus said, “But why
do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do the
things which I say?
(Luke 6:46). A “lord” or “master” is
someone you obey. But most professing
Christian ministers and their followers do
not follow the clear teachings and examples
of Jesus and His Apostles. And, most of them
do not even bother to deeply study their
Bibles to find what those teachings and
examples are!
The key issue today
(and vital to our walk with God), then, is
our desire and willingness to get back to
the true Christian faith, “the faith which
was once
for
all delivered to the saints” (Jude
3).
We must be willing to genuinely put
God's Word first above all things and live
His teachings, commandments (all of them)
and forsake those things which are not of
God. A good way to understand this is to
understand those in the early church and how
they stood up to outside influences to
change the very teachings to which they had
dedicated their lives; even put their lives
in danger in order to obey. It is essential
today to understand how the “reformers” of
the church took the paganism of “Babylon”,
(as established by Constantine), and
left the things of God behind. They didn't
reform the church to the teachings of
Christ. They further moved away from Jesus
Christ. Don't take my word for it, study it.
Prove
all things by the Word of God.
Frankly, the “little
flock” (Luke
12:32); the Body of Christ, has always
understood the need to pattern itself after
the teachings and examples of Jesus Christ.
Although very few have seriously attempted
to follow this pattern, many scholars and
religious historians have understood the
concept of the “Jerusalem Church.” This is a
vital concept to understand if we are
sincerely interested in contending “for the
faith once delivered.” Jesus admonishes us
in that same chapter of Luke “...ye
yourselves like unto men that wait for their
lord, when he will return from the wedding
that when he cometh and kocketh, they may be
open unto him immediately. Blessed are those
servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall
find watching; verily I say unto you, that
he shall gird himself, and make them to sit
down to meat, and will come forth and serve
them. And if he shall come in the second
watch, or come in the third watch, and find
them so, blessed are those servants.”
(Luke
12:36-38).
The Apostle Paul was
inspired to write to the Thessalonians, “For
you, brethren, became imitators of the
churches of God which are in Judea in Christ
Jesus.” (I
Thessalonians 2:14). The Book of Acts
makes it clear that the earthly
“headquarters” of Jesus' Church, for many
decades, was the Jerusalem Church. It was
here that the Holy Spirit was originally
poured out on the true Christians (Acts
2). It was here where Peter, James and
John carried on most of their ministry for
many years (Acts
4:1, 8:1, 11:1-2). Later, it was to the
leadership at Jerusalem that Paul and
Barnabas came to settle the major question
of circumcision for the Gentiles and related
questions. (Acts
15:4-6).
As renowned historian
Edward Gibbon wrote: “The first fifteen
bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised
Jews; and the congregation over which they
presided united the law of Moses with the
doctrine of
Christ. It was natural that the
primitive tradition of a church which was
founded only forty days after the death of
Christ, and was governed almost as many
years under the immediate inspection of his
apostle, should be received as the standard
of orthodoxy. The distant churches were
frequently appealed to the authority of
their venerable Parent.” (The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chap. 15, sec. 1, p. 389).
As indicated above,
the only major ministerial conference
indicated in the New Testament was held at
Jerusalem. Here lived the leading original
Apostles. Here was the true “mother” church
(not
Rome!). And it was to Jerusalem Paul and
Barnabas had come even earlier, lest, as
Paul had put it, “I might run, or had run,
in
vain.” (Galatians
2:1-2) After the major Jerusalem
conference, Paul and Silas traveled
throughout Asia Minor visiting the churches.
“And as they went through the cities,
they delivered to them the decrees to keep,
which were determined by the apostles and
elders
at
Jerusalem.” (Acts
16:4).
Clearly the original
Apostles set the “inspired” pattern for true
Christianity –
not
just for that time – but for
all
time! Contrary to the (heretical) Protestant
ideas that the Apostle Paul was later used
to “reinvent” Christianity. The real Apostle
Paul of the Bible, (God's inspired Word),
constantly showed deep respect for the
original Apostles and deferred to the
leadership Jerusalem in all major matters.
And, it was the Apostle Paul who wrote the
primarily Gentile church at Corinth,
“Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision
is nothing, but keeping the commandments of
God is what matters.” (I
Corinthians 7:19). Noted historian Carl
von Weisacker wrote in 1895:
“Paul was
far from confining his interest to the
Gentile Christian Church which he had
himself
founded.
His thoughts were much too lofty to leave
Jewish Christianity to itself. He toiled not
merely for
his own work, but for the Body of Christ-the
whole church. He never forgot for a moment the
true birthplace of the gospel. And for him
the Christians in Jerusalem were always the
[saints]...He did not however merely
entertain a grand policy of ecclesiastical
union, but his
first and
constant thought was that the primitive
Church was the foremost divine institution
under
the
Gospel...In the early Apostles he saw...the
Apostles of the Lord. From them the
testimony of the
Resurrection emanated (I
Corinthians 15:1). They were ever the
apostles, whom God had placed at
the head of His Church, (Christ Himself
being the Head), the first of those divinely
commissioned men who held the leading office
in the Body of Christ.” (I
Corinthians 12:28). (The
Apostolic
Age of the Christian Church.
pp. 12-13).
Later in Paul's
ministry, he traveled again to Jerusalem:
“And when we had come to Jerusalem, the
brethren received us gladly. On the
following day Paul went in with us to James,
and all the elders were present.” (Acts
21:17-18). Notice that Paul presented
himself to James, the Lord's brother, who by
now was undoubtedly the chief Apostle at
Jerusalem – Peter probably having gone to
the “lost sheep” of the house of Israel in
northwest Europe and the British Isles.
After rejoicing in
the good news Paul brought about God's work
among the Gentiles, the Jerusalem leadership
told Paul: “You see, brother, how many
myriads of Jews there are who have believed,
and they are all zealous for the law.” (v.
20). The term “myriad” literally means
“tens of thousands.” So as not to confuse or
discourage these many Jewish Christians,
Paul was asked by the Jerusalem Church to go
through an offering ceremony to publicly
demonstrate that he was
not
teaching in any way against God's laws. The
Jerusalem leaders exhorted Paul: “Take these
men along and be purified with them and pay
all the expenses connected with the shaving
of their heads. This will let everyone know
there is no truth in the reports they have
heard about you and that you still
regularly observe the Law.” (v. 24,
Jerusalem Bible).
If Paul had, in fact,
been teaching against God's Law in
any
way, especially the
spiritual law containing the Ten
Commandments, he most certainly would not
have gone through this ceremony of the law
of Moses! That particular ceremony; probably
a thanks offering at the conclusion of the
Nazarite vow, was
not
necessary for a New Testament Christian.
But it was not “sinful” either! And Paul's
deep respect for God's Law, for the original
mother church and the pattern of
obedience God's Law-all this guided Paul
in his decision to go ahead and participate
in this ceremony. By guiding Paul in this –
and putting this example in the Bible—God is
showing
all
of us that Paul's approach was one of
obedience to law, not one who tried to
do away with or “reason around” God's
spiritual laws as so many Protestant
theologians teach.
Nearly all professing
Christians understand that in order to be an
acceptable sacrifice for mankind's sins,
Jesus Christ, had to keep the Law perfectly.
But what law did He keep, and what did He
expect of His followers? Here is how Christ
Himself described His mission:
“Do not
think that I came to destroy the Law or the
Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to
fulfill.
For
assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and
earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will
by no means pass from the
law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore
breaks one of the least of these
commandments and
teaches men
so, shall be called least in the kingdom of
heaven; but whoever does and teaches them,
he
shall be
called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I
say unto you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will by no means enter the kingdom of
heaven.”
(Matthew 5:17-20).
Many Christians do
not grasp the importance of those words.
Christ said that not “one jot or one tittle”
(the tiniest marks in the Hebrew script) of
the law would pass from the law until heaven
and earth passed away. Since heaven and
earth have not passed away, we must
understand that the law remains. And Christ
condemned those who would falsely teach men
to break even the “least of these
commandments.” Rather, He explained that
those who do both
do
and
teach the commandments will be called
“great” in the kingdom of heaven.!
Did His “fulfilling”
of the law somehow change these
commandments? Or did they change after
Christ's resurrection? No! Heaven and earth
did not pass away at His resurrection. And
we must understand what He meant when
He said he would “fulfill” the law. Once
scholar explains His words as follows:
“Did
[Jesus] fill or fulfill the [Law]? The
common word plerosai
means 'to fill.” At [Matthew]
5:17 most
translations render it 'to fulfill.' The
theological implications often drawn are
that [Jesus] fulfilled all
the
prophecies of the [Old Testament] pertaining
to the Jews, so that none remain for them
now; and
that he
kept the [Law] perfectly, so that no one
need obey it today. But these conclusions do
not follow
logically and, in fact, they contradict
[Jesus'] immediately preceding statement
that he did not come to
abolish (or destroy) the [Law]. More
fundamental for translation, however, is the question of
whether plerosai in this verse is that
[Jesus] came to fill the [Law] and the
ethical
pronouncements of the Prophets full with
their complete meaning, so that everyone can
know all
that
obedience entails. For this reason the
Jewish New Testament says that [Jesus] came
'not to abolish
but to
complete.' In fact, this is the subject of
the entire Sermon on the Mount; and
Matthew 5:17,
understood
in this way, is its theme sentence.” (Jewish
New Testament, Stern, 1993, pp.
xxii-xxiii).
In other words,
Jesus came, as Isaiah prophesied (Isaiah
42:21), to “magnify” God's law and to
show its fullest
intent
and
purpose. What Jesus Christ sought to
abolish were the abuses of the law and the
man-made traditions that perverted the law.
His sacrificial death, foreshadowed by the
temple sacrifices, made those animal
sacrifice and washings irrelevant for
Christians. But His life showed that the
spiritual law-the Ten Commandments-was
and
would remain relevant for those seeking
to obey Him. One cannot properly understand
His teachings without understanding the Old
Testament scriptures and the law they
contain, as noted by Frederick Holmgren:
“The Old Testament
brings gifts to the Christian tradition. One
of those gifts is the Torah (the
Law)...Jesus embraced the Torah of Moses; he
came not to end it but to fulfill it (Matthew
5:17) – to carry its teachings forward.
Further, to those who came to him seeking
eternal life, he held it up as the essential
teaching to be observed (Luke
10:25-28). Despite Jesus' conflict with
some interpreters of his day, both Jewish
and Christian scholars see him as one who
honored and followed the Law. When Jesus
proclaims the coming rule of God, He speaks
nowhere in detail about the inner character
of this rule. He does not need to because
that has already been described in the Old
Testament...The Old Testament is not an
antiquated Scripture; its life-giving
teachings are needed by the church.”
(Frederick C. Holmgren, “Preaching the
Gospel Without Anti-Judaism,”
Removing Anti-Judaism from the Pulpit,
ed. Howard Clark Kee and Irvin J Borowski,
1996, pp. 72-73).
Indeed, Jesus
Christ taught from the Old Testament, and He
lived by it, as did His followers. Do you?
If you are being taught something different
than what God's Word teaches; it causes
confusion. God is not the author of
confusion. Take a step back, look at what is
confusing and then PROVE ALL THINGS BY GOD'S
WORD.
If we become confused, it can only be
from one source and it is NOT from God. It
is and can only be from the prince of this
world. We must be discerning and prove all
things; no matter what our preacher or
pastor, says. We are to follow God – not
men.
Direct all comments to
sylvester.lea@gmail.com
I appreciate everyone who takes the time to
write.