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.”

But Bertrand Comparet is not the only Identity teacher or pastor from the past which we have critiqued, and we have treated Wesley Swift, Charles Weisman, and even our dear friend Clifton Emahiser in the same manner, always trying to be as objective as possible. Clifton actually enjoyed, and often watched my critiques of his work in person, even when he did not participate. In fact, we have critiqued many more of Clifton’s papers than those of any other writer, and I feel at least partially responsible for many of them because I worked with Clifton and edited most of them. So our objective is certainly not to trash the graves of dead men, but rather, we seek to build up an even more solid foundation for our faith, in which we endeavor to examine all things and find what is true, and to cleave to that, as Paul of Tarsus advised the Romans, in chapter 12 of his epistle, to “ 2 … be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Now in our endeavor to advance that objective we shall critique this sermon, which is titled In Partnership with Yahweh, because it is highly illustrative of some of the most fundamental differences which we have with Bertrand Comparet. These differences have been the cause of many disputes between ourselves and many long-time Christian Identity adherents over the past twenty years, and regardless of how much we respect Bertrand Comparet, some of his work is still very much in need of correction. However even doing this, we have already critiqued some of the ideas he presents here in relation to another of his sermons, titled Noah's Flood Was Not World Wide, which we presented here in September of 2020. So we shall borrow some of our criticisms for this sermon.

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.