November 2022

In Partnership with Yahweh, A Critical Review of a Sermon by Bertrand Comparet

Not counting his commentary series on the Revelation, which we do not plan to critique here, there are nearly 130 sermons posted at the Bertrand Comparet archive at Christogenea. Now, over these past few years, we have already critiqued about a third of them, and we have greatly expanded on more than a few, such as his sermons on Ruth and Esther, and especially his sermon on Christianity in the Old Testament. Our first critique of his work was his sermon on Esther, which we discussed over three of our own presentations in the Spring of 2015, and we have presented commentary on about three dozen of his other sermons since then.

To us this undertaking is important, because for so many Identity Christians, Bertrand Comparet’s work provided a foundation for their understanding of Scripture and was instrumental in helping them to develop a basis for the substance of their faith. Therefore, if we take our faith seriously, that basis must be continually contemplated, measured against Scripture, and if one tenet or another is not upheld by Scripture then we must allow ourselves to be corrected. As we read in the 119th Psalm: “12 Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes. 13 With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. 14 I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. 15 I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. 16 I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.”

It is Enough to be an Israelite, But Enough for What?, Part 4 - Our Rebuttal to a Sermon by Bertrand Comparet

We have now taken three of these presentations to both present and critique the entirety of Bertrand Comparet’s sermon, Is it Enough Merely to be an Israelite?, which is contrary to our own view of Scripture, and, at least in our own opinion, we have discredited all of his arguments and all of his witnesses as either being inaccurate or as being irrelevant to the subject of eternal life. As we have seen, all of Comparet’s examples from Scripture concerned only temporal punishment or salvation, whereas he was errantly using them in a context which disputed the basis for eternal salvation.

But it is not sufficient merely to deconstruct what we believe are some of Bertrand Comparet’s errors, without offering support for our own position. So we also offered an allegory as we closed our arguments against him, that since he was a lawyer and we have cross-examined all of his witnesses, now we would present our own case. As we proceed, we shall also provide proof texts which inform us that these are indeed two separate issues, that eternal salvation and temporal salvation are two different subjects. It would be a joy to have Comparet here to cross-examine our witnesses, but of course that is not possible.

So here we shall present our own point of view, and our own witnesses which inform us that it certainly is enough merely to be an Israelite in order to attain eternal salvation. But that alone does not mean that there will be any reward in that salvation, so in our rebuttal we added the question, But enough for what? We will discuss that here as well, even if the full implications are not revealed to us in Scripture. As the apostle John wrote in chapter 3 of his first epistle, “2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” In this area especially, we cannot claim to know anything more than what John had known.

Here we shall continue our presentation and critique of Bertrand Comparet’s sermon, Is it Enough Merely to be an Israelite?, but doing so I will probably have to repeat myself at least a few times. That is because Comparet opened his sermon by criticizing Paul of Tarsus in Romans chapter 11, where Paul had properly paraphrased the prophet Isaiah and said “all Israel shall be saved”, yet Paul was speaking of the salvation of the spirit and eternal life, within the context that temporal salvation may not be attained, whereas all of the examples by which Comparet attempts to refute him relate only to the temporal salvation of the flesh or the nation. Disagreeing with Paul where he said “All Israel shall be saved”, Comparet mentioned not one of the many promises of eternal salvation, resurrection, or redemption from death and the grave which are found in either the Old or New Testaments. He only mentioned Isaiah 45:17 while criticizing Paul, and neglected to note Isaiah 45:25, or perhaps he may have realized that he could not have justly criticized Paul.

But Comparet was a trained attorney, and an attorney is never going to introduce evidence which hurts his case. Here he has tried to make a case that Paul of Tarsus was wrong, and that all Israel shall not be saved, and it is our endeavor to defend Paul and his statement. So now, as he continues, while there are indeed many good ideas found throughout his sermon, he only provides examples, some of them quite lengthy, of temporal punishment and temporary deliverance. But those examples do not relate to any of the promises of eternal salvation found in Scripture, and it seems as if, at least in this sermon, Comparet completely failed to distinguish between the two, and to rightly divide the Word of Truth.