Different Gospel Interpretation

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:42 pm

We have misunderstood the Gospel of Christ.

I know how that sounds. Controversial. Sacrilegious. Cultic. Heretical. Satanic. But it is nevertheless the truth. The purpose of this writing is to express as clearly as I can the root and flower of this misunderstanding, and to succinctly explain the true meaning of the Gospel. It will then be left to the thoughtful reader to come to his or her own conclusions. As an overview I will state simply that the good news is much better than we have realized; much better than most of us can even imagine. (http://yhwh.com/Garden/garden0.htm)

Kurieuo: Unlinked whole paragraph as unnecessary.

RGeeB · Post by **RGeeB** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:12 am

My initial comments:
1) The philosophy of 'conventional' Christians is not strictly as stated in the article. Through a personal relationship with Jesus, maybe as a teacher, the Spirit leads us into truth.
2) The article does not deal with this question - 'Why did God create man?'
3) We may or may not have the right interpretation - One thing is true - He that goes on believing in Jesus will be saved. This, I believe, will lead to evil being forsaken.
4) Does repentence require God's help or is it human effort? When is the restoration complete?
5) I came to the conclusion that acting upon the knowledge of evil is sin. This makes sin relative. For example, the eating of meat sacrificed to idols. Now, if one wants to extend this to adultery, murder etc - I would say its better to preach from NT commands of right and wrong, rather than leaving it up to consciences?

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:41 am

Care to detail the main points Chris? This would perhaps inspire further discussion for those of us too lazy to read the several pages you link to. Additionally, only providing quotes or links within a post seems a lot like spam (one reason the signature and website fields are disabled for the profile of new users until they make a few posts).

Thanks,
Kurieuo.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:00 am

Kurieuo wrote:Care to detail the main points Chris? This would perhaps inspire further discussion for those of us too lazy to read the several pages you link to. Additionally, only providing quotes or links within a post seems a lot like spam (one reason the signature and website fields are disabled for the profile of new users until they make a few posts).

Thanks,
Kurieuo.

You want the main points? The author lays it all out here (it's only one page, I think you can handle it). This is no spam, I have no connection with the author other than thinking his point of view was interesting and worthy of further examination. I've never been a "traditional" Christian, so I wanted to hear how some professed Christians would respond to the site. Can you help me with that?

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:15 am

RGeeB wrote:My initial comments:
1) The philosophy of 'conventional' Christians is not strictly as stated in the article. Through a personal relationship with Jesus, maybe as a teacher, the Spirit leads us into truth.

What sort of Christian are you? Can you say you speak for all "conventional" Christians? I think the author was talking about Christianity as commonly understood.

2) The article does not deal with this question - 'Why did God create man?'

Elsewhere on his site he deals with that question.

3) We may or may not have the right interpretation - One thing is true - He that goes on believing in Jesus will be saved. This, I believe, will lead to evil being forsaken.

The author debunks that point of view beautifully. Jonas Salk came up with a vaccine for polio. Believing this is true will not, however, protect you from polio. You have to actually take the vaccine.

4) Does repentence require God's help or is it human effort? When is the restoration complete?

Read the site for the author's answers.

5) I came to the conclusion that acting upon the knowledge of evil is sin. This makes sin relative. For example, the eating of meat sacrificed to idols. Now, if one wants to extend this to adultery, murder etc - I would say its better to preach from NT commands of right and wrong, rather than leaving it up to consciences?

I don't know how you came to that conclusion. Thanks for your responses.

Felgar · Post by **Felgar** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 8:48 am

Hmmm... Some interesting food for thought. If found this a particularly interesting concept. Would Adam be doomed like Satan had he ate from the Tree of Life?

God set immediately to try to heal his poisoned children, preventing them from eating from the Tree of Life, which would have immortalized their pain. Their pain was to be only temporal, guiding them back to the paths of goodness.

And the site is correct that God provided a means for our Salvation, and that Jesus is it. All the talk about 'ego' is just different words to say that Jesus died for our sins so that we don't have to. That is certanly correct. I take exception however to two mains points and I feel that they are poison in an otherwise Biblical discourse:

1) Our only personal hope for everlasting life then is to drink of Jesus' antidote. To have our minds transformed and stop thinking of the world as evil, to stop thinking in an evil way and stop seeing ourselves as sinners. Our hope lies in tapping into the power which Jesus made available to all people.

This first point is not so dangerous, but could lead people astray.

Romans 3:22-24
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

The Bible is clear - man has sinfull nature, and ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Yes we a free of sin in the eyes of God because of Jesus (justified) but we're reminded again and again that we must be mindful of our sinnful nature and seek Him to supress it as much as possible. To 'stop thinking of ourselves as sinners' might lead one to believe that they are in fact good by nature and don't require His grace - which is entirely false and also dangerous. Interestingly, that seems to be exactly what point #2 says:

2) All people are right now saved, though most do not know this, and continue to live in the pain of ego.

This is completely false and is completely non-biblical. (LOL... Meaning 'this is completely false and completely false'

)

Matthew 7:13-14
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Also great multitudes are cast into the Lake of Fire. ALL people are not saved. 'Woe to those to who hear the message of Jesus and reject Him.'

And finally, most importantly, by His grace, through Faith, we are saved. It is simply not Biblical to argue that you can be saved without Faith. In fact, I would present that as a lie by Satan intended to hide people from the Truth. It's right there in Romans 3 from earlier in the post (and many, many, other places) that righteousness comes from God THROUGH FAITH in Jesus Christ. To whom? To those who believe. Do not believe anything else - it is a lie.

P.S. Welcome to the forum Chris. Where are you from (location)?

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:10 pm

Thank you for your response Felgar. This is exactly what I'm looking for, an intelligent discourse dealing specifically with what the Bible actually says. I thank you also for looking at the site. "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another". That being said, I think you slightly missed the point. The author makes it very clear that in the beginning, God pronounced everything to be good. His inference from that is that evil did not exist, but could only be a thought. As he said, Adam and Eve didn't know good or evil, they knew only one thing life!, and a glorious fellowship with God.

1) Our only personal hope for everlasting life then is to drink of Jesus' antidote. To have our minds transformed and stop thinking of the world as evil, to stop thinking in an evil way and stop seeing ourselves as sinners. Our hope lies in tapping into the power which Jesus made available to all people.

Your problem with this is you say all men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Without even debating those scriptures, let me go back to the Jonas Salk example. Before you get the vaccine, all men are susceptible to the disease Polio. Once Jonas Salk provided the vaccine all men are saved from from Polio. That doesn't mean that there won't be cases of polio, or that "believing in" the vaccine without taking it will protect you from polio. It does mean that its not necessary to have polio, a preventive measure exists. I have more to say, but right now I have to get back to work.

P.S. I posted on the old board under the same name, but I had been away for awhile and everything changed. I had to re-register and start again.But thanks for the welcome. I live in the States, in the NYC area, in Jersey.

Felgar · Post by **Felgar** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 1:57 pm

Chris wrote: Your problem with this is you say all men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Without even debating those scriptures, let me go back to the Jonas Salk example. Before you get the vaccine, all men are susceptible to the disease Polio. Once Jonas Salk provided the vaccine all men are saved from from Polio. That doesn't mean that there won't be cases of polio, or that "believing in" the vaccine without taking it will protect you from polio. It does mean that its not necessary to have polio, a preventive measure exists. I have more to say, but right now I have to get back to work.

P.S. I posted on the old board under the same name, but I had been away for awhile and everything changed. I had to re-register and start again.But thanks for the welcome. I live in the States, in the NYC area, in Jersey.

The vaccine analogy actually holds pretty good. The vaccine would be for the purpose of protecting all people, just like Jesus came to save all men. BUT, a person must actually receive the vaccine in order to be protected from polio. How do we receive Jesus? By confessing our sins and believing that He is the Son of God and that He died for our sins. So the act of believing is directly analogous to the act of taking the vaccine.

Now there is a polio vaccine, but does that mean no one can ever contract polio? No. So all humans are not saved from Polio. Just like all humans are not saved from the wages of sin - to be saved we have to actually take the antidote, by believing in Jesus. So the assertion that all are saved is completely FALSE and dangerous. And the author is making this claim, as I quoted earlier. The assertion that anyone CAN be saved is Biblical and is in fact the truth. Moreover it's the very reason that we're commanded to spread the news of the Gospel.

Did I miss the point? Well, maybe. But small amounts of lies corrupt the whole rest of the message which may be otherwise true:

Galation 5:7-9
You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough."

James 3:10-12
Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 3:48 am

I feel that the author of that site is a bit misled. He discribes in detail how the essence of Christianity is actually in the Garden of Gethsemane not on the cross. He tries to illustrate through his temptation that Jesus is not perfect and that he became perfect through his suffering. This is totally untrue; Jesus redeemed US through his suffering not himself. He had no need to....He was and is Holy!

The author also tried to prove that because Jesus was tempted, he was not perfect. Temptation is not a sin. God never said "DO NOT BE TEMPTED!" that would be impossible for any human. Jesus of all people, did not need to die to himself. He always followed God and put God infront of his own needs and wants. I can't see anywhere where Jesus was 'living for himself', and i doubt that he would have called people to 'take their crosses' if he had yet to do so. The prospect of being nailed to a cross for hours after being beaten senseless was probably not too appealing to Jesus (or anyone for that matter) and so is it any wonder that Jesus did want to go through that pain? Jesus still submitted to God's will though....however this was nothing new! he always submitted to the Father! always!

The author also tries to push the point that Jesus 'dying to himself' was the solution to sin. It wasn't. His death was the answer to the problem of sin. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him" - Romans 5 v8-9.
"..we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son..." Romans 5 v10. I don't think you can take this any other way, it clearly says that it is Christs BLOOD that we are justified....not his 'self denial'. I struggle to see where how the author can believe any different.