Douglas - Section 55, 56, 57

Here we shall continue our address of the second of Clayton Douglas’ Paul-bashing articles, SAUL OF TARSUS AND HIS DOCTRINE OF LAWLESSNESS, which he published in the January, 2004 issue of his Free American Newsmagazine. While I already hope to have fully demonstrated on many occasions that Clayton Douglas’ accusations against Paul of Tarsus are all vain and empty, that none of them stand upon examination, yet all of Douglas’ two articles on this topic must be addressed, for we would not want to leave anything out. While many of the arguments Douglas makes in this second article are just repackaged from his first, he does add new material and raise some new issues. Now we shall continue with Douglas’ article:

<Section #55A> Clayton Douglas states: “Here’s what Paul says: ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ Galatians 2:20

“Even the most devoted Paul followers will detect a whiff of a bad odor here. Paul/Saul is narcissistic. He claims to have been crucified with Christ; and - let us try to be fair ... perhaps he meant ‘spiritually’. But, it’s the next line that is spell-binding. ‘Nevertheless I live.’ In other words, Paul celebrates that it is he, not Immanuel, who lives. He is chortling, as they say. Paul chortles further. Paul states, ‘(He) gave himself for me’.”

In reply to section <#55A>: Here Paul makes an important analogy, which Douglas has perverted with his own misunderstanding, so typical of this deceitful man. Sin is violation of the law. The penalty for such sin is death, when reparation cannot be made. Since the entire nation of the Israelites sinned and cannot possibly make reparation for their errors, the entire nation is condemned by the law. The penalty for adultery alone is death, and every one of our Israelite ancestors is guilty of this: the worship of false gods. We have all broken the vows which our fathers took long ago, and to which we are bound by ancient tradition. This is independent of any sin which each of us have committed personally, and who among us can claim not to have sinned at all? Under the Old Covenant, rather than a man confessing his sins and condemning himself, an animal was sacrificed at the altar in his place as atonement for the sin, i.e. Lev. 4:13-35. Yet this was only symbolic, as Paul explains in Hebrews chapter 10, looking forward to the day when Yahweh Himself would make reparations for the sins of the children of Israel, for which see section <#46> of this response on p. 103.

Because all Israel has sinned, all Israel is condemned by the law. Yet Yahshua Christ redeemed, made reparations for, each and every one of the children of Israel, and without exception! So Paul says of Yahshua that “He gave Himself for me”, and he is wholly correct in his assessment. Each and every White Adamic man on the face of the earth today should have such an understanding! Where Paul says “I am crucified with Christ”, each one of us should understand that Christ had substituted Himself in our condemnation. Then Paul says “nevertheless I live” because, except for the will of Yahweh, it is each of us who should have suffered that penalty. Paul explains all of this in Romans chapters 3 through 7. Then Paul says “yet not I, but Christ lives in me”, and this Douglas completely fails to comprehend, so he scoffs even further. This shall be addressed shortly, after we see the rest of Douglas’ comments on the matter. First, Douglas takes a short diversion:

<Section #55B> Clayton Douglas states: “I want you to ponder that one statement for a moment. Remember that Immanuel’s life was made miserable by His archenemy, Saul of Tarsus, ‘The Pharisee of the Pharisees.’ Paul/Saul had stalked Immanuel and His followers for years upon years, trying to set up Jesus Christ. Saul wanted desperately to kill Jesus Christ. It was his one purpose in life. Saul wanted to ‘shut Him down.’ Ultimately, Paul and his Pharisee gangsters satisfied that mission. Christ was hideously butchered by the hidden hands of the Pharisees who hated Him so. But, Paul does not want you to remember that. He would much rather have you think that Christ’s death is a ‘celebration’ and that ‘Christ died for Paul.’ Perhaps, there is a kernal [sic] of Freudian truth there.”

In reply to section  <#55B>: Douglas wants us to “remember” nothing factual, but only the novel which he has been concocting since the beginning of his first article, which became evident and was addressed here beginning at section <#13> of this response on p. 53. There is not one bit of evidence that Paul had anything to do with the crucifixion of Yahshua, or that Paul was even in Palestine at any time during Christ’s 3½ year ministry, never mind his being a leader in Judaea. In section <#32>, on p. 87, it has been shown that it is quite unlikely that Paul was a leader among the Pharisees during the time of Christ’s ministry. It is also evident that, before Paul’s conversion, it was the Sadducees who were the leading persecutors of Christians (Acts 4:1; 5:17), although the Pharisees were doing so also. Notice that, as usual, Douglas cites no sources for any of his statements. He invented the entire story himself! And where he refers to “Freudian truth”, he shows himself to be a follower of yet another anti-Christ jew miscreant. Douglas continues:

<Section #55C> Clayton Douglas states: “... Paul says it is not really ‘him’ that you see, the [sic] ‘he’ was crucified, and it is ‘not I but Christ’ living in his body. He is claiming that he is essentially Christ, and for this reason he is superior to all of Christ’s Disciples who opposed him at every turn. Since ‘Christ’ lived in Paul, this ‘Christ’ was calling the shots. The direction that ‘the church’ would go in was now up [sic to] the dictation of a man who may have met Jesus only once, and then only to be rebuked for being an oppressor of the Disciples.”

In reply to section <#55C>: And picking up where we left off a few paragraphs above, Paul says “yet not I, but Christ lives in me”, and Douglas scoffs. At 2 Corinthians 6:16, where Paul admonishes the children of Israel to separate themselves from the unclean races (not the unclean “thing”, as the A.V. conjectures), he quotes several Old Testament verses, such as Leviticus 26:11, Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 37:27, and he says “... ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said. I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Adamic bodies are the vessels for the real “us”, so to speak: the spirit which Yahweh gave to Adamic man (cf. Gen. 2:7; 6:3). That this is so is supported by the scriptures at Jer. 2:13; Isa. 52:11; Romans 9:22-23 and 2 Tim. 2:20-21, discussed at length in the second of my Broken Cisterns pamphlets. Adamic spirits, having come from Yahweh, are part of and one with Him. Paul certainly taught that the vessels which bear such spirits – as those of the children of Israel do – should be treated accordingly (i.e. 1 Thess. 4:1-5). And so Yahshua Christ Himself, as recorded in the gospel of John, says: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (14:23). So Clayton Douglas scoffs not at Paul, but at Yahshua Christ Himself. In his ignorance, Douglas rejects Christ and the prophets, which Paul taught justly and correctly.

Paul never claimed superiority over the other apostles, but rather acceded to the advice of the elder James (Acts 21:18-26) without contention and regardless of what he thought of it. Conversely, he professed to being least of all apostles (1 Cor. 15:9) and least of all saints (“saints” being the children of Israel who accept the gospel, not phony Romish church ‘saints’) because of his prior role in persecuting the Christian assemblies. If the “church” went in the direction dictated by Paul, what a fine collection of assemblies (not a single, overpowering “church”) they would have been! This has been discussed here in section <#4> of this response on p. 39 and in section <#18> on p. 62. Paul taught nothing which resembles what the Romish or Greek orthodox or later Protestant “churches” became. Clayton Douglas is an ignorant man, and a liar of his own making.

<Section #56A> Clayton Douglas states: “Jesus’ Brother James is almost entirely written out of the picture, and is referred to - quite disrespectfully and in a very revealing fashion - by Paul/Saul in Acts by a descriptive noun rather than by his name. Not that the ‘slur’ mattered much to James. James continued to issue warnings about Paul.”

In reply to section <#56A>: I can’t imagine where in Acts it is recorded that Paul referred to James “quite disrespectfully”. Notice again that Douglas makes no citation, and so he is either a deceiver, or an idiot. If he could have made a citation, you can bet all your marbles he would have waved it at us like a red flag. Yet if perhaps Douglas is not an idiot, he certainly must think that his readers are idiots! For he babbles on:

<Section #56B> Clayton Douglas states: “In regards to Paul’s egotism and boastfulness, James wrote: ‘If any man among you seems to be religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.’ James 1:26

“‘So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest! And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Hell.’ James 3:5-6
“There are further examples. Find them for yourselves. ... Line for line, the debate matches up; point by point through the admonitions of James regarding the wickedness of Paul. Yet still there are so many who will never choose to see that their master Paul was a murderer, deceiver and imposter [sic] from the beginning, and still to this very day, nothing has changed.”

In reply to section <#56B>: Yet James’ epistle is clearly addressed to “the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad”, and Paul is never a subject of nor is he even mentioned in this epistle. James 1:26, speaking in general to these people and about no particular individual, is clearly an admonition to “any man among” those twelve tribes, and has nothing at all to do with Paul! Douglas would have us believe that the Liar of the Dead Sea Scrolls is Paul, which is impossible in context, and now this in James, where every negative admonition is supposed to be directed at Paul. This is absolutely ridiculous, and if Douglas is not being purposely deceptive, he is a total moron! This isn’t even close to believable, and shows that Clayton Douglas would stop at nothing to slander Paul of Tarsus! He’ll unabashedly invent any ridiculous imagining and vain device hoping to gain some poor unsuspecting simpleton to fall for such idiocy in the name of “patriotism”, which is the most unpatriotic thing one can do since Paul is our brother and a co-descendant with us in descent from Abraham our common “patriarch”. Or is it (as we have demonstrated before at section <#15> on p. 56 of this response) that he simply can’t read? So, neither is Clayton Douglas literate, nor is he an informed patriot.

<Section #57> Clayton Douglas states: “Paul even admitted to theft and swindling churches. These are his own words: ‘I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.’ 2 Corinthians 11:8

“So you see, it is nothing new when we see these charlatans and thieves stealing the money of those trying to do what they have been taught is right. When there are individuals making millions off of the ignorance of the masses, using a religion crafted after the Pharisees themselves to psychologically enslave them to the status quo, such thieves are only following after their master Paul, who admitted to stealing from churches.

“Again, Paul does little to hide his true purpose from you. And, yet most of you will continue to defend Paul/Saul until your dying day. Why? Because Paul/Saul is a Tradition.”

In reply to section <#57>: Here Douglas’ nefarious charges shall again be proven vain, empty of any substance. From my own translation, 2 Cor. 11:7-9 reads: “7 Can it be that I have made an error, humbling myself in order that you may be elevated, because I have announced the good message of Yahweh to you freely? 8 I have deprived other assemblies, taking provisions for your service. 9 And being present with you and wanting, I had burdened no one, (indeed my need had been filled by the brethren who came from Makedonia,) and in everything I have kept and will keep myself unburdensome to you.” The events Paul refers to are recorded in Acts chapter 18. Both Timothy and Silas were among “the brethren who came from Makedonia” who supplied Paul’s needs (Acts 18:5). Paul certainly didn’t “rob” the assembly in Makedonia, and he makes another brief visit there, recorded in Acts chapter 20. The word which the A.V. translated robbed at 2 Cor. 11:8 is συλάω (4813) and also means to deprive, according to Liddell & Scott. There are many Greek words which mean to rob or to steal, yet this is certainly not what Paul is inferring. Paul is only telling the Corinthians that he attended to their service yet asked nothing of them, and did so while the Makedonians in turn provided for him. Now again, Clayton Douglas will find anything at all that he can twist to support his slander of Paul. Like a ‘good’ jew should, as one can expect, Douglas will go to any length to discredit Paul and Christianity, while at the same time pretending to be patriotic and a Christian, which he is neither! This is the sort of man which all Paul-bashers are following!