Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 14, The Bad Figs

Addressing Charles Weisman’s What About the Seedline Doctrine? Part 14, The Bad Figs

Over our last two presentations in this series we have covered perhaps only two pages of Charles Weisman’s book, What About the Seedline Doctrine?, and have had a few long digressions. But we hope to have shown that in relation to many words found in the New Testament, Weisman had used the same methods of interpretation which had crept into the early universalist church, which were adopted from Gnosticism and Greek Philosophy, but which are not at all Christian.

So last week, in Part 13 of this series, subtitled Children of Wrath, we addressed a claim by Weisman that where Christ referred to His adversaries as children of the devil, He was only speaking metaphorically and telling them that they were mere followers of the devil. Making that argument, the first flaw is that he seems to have purposely ignored the fact that Christ was speaking in reference to Cain, and not to the serpent of Genesis. So if Christ was implying that His adversaries were mere followers of the devil, why would He make a reference to Cain as their father, and not to the serpent itself?

So while he made that assertion, Weisman then sought to show that being “children of the devil” was only a metaphor by comparing the phrase to similar metaphors which appear in the epistles of Paul or in the gospel accounts. Among these are the phrases children of wrath, children of light, children of the world, child of hell, children of disobedience and son of perdition. So we began to examine each instance that Weisman had cited, and a few that he did not cite, where these and similar phrases appear. Doing that, we found that these phrases certainly were used by the writers of Scripture to describe a class of people other than the children of God, a class which has no offer of mercy, forgiveness or redemption, nor any part in the promises of God. Weisman failed to examine those phrases in their original Biblical contexts, and therefore he expected his readers to take for granted his implication that they are all just metaphors describing people who are merely disobedient, rather than people who in fact could never really be obedient in the first place because they are literally not of God.

So in the course of doing that, we also hope to have proven the veracity of our rebuttal of Weisman through a method of interpretation which Weisman, in writing his book, had never considered. That method is the historical method – examining the history of the people of Judaea at the time of Christ in order to find out whether His words could be literally true, and we demonstrated that to be the valid method of interpretation because it is indeed proven through an understanding of that history.

But when we examined Weisman’s list of presumably similar metaphors, we stopped short of completing our examination of his last citation, in relation to the phrase son of perdition, which is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. We left off where we discussed how that same phrase was used in reference to Judas Iscariot in John chapter 17, and demonstrated that when the words were spoken, Judas had not yet committed any sin, while even his act of betrayal was not a transgression of anything explicit in the law, so he still cannot be accused of any sin.

Now John had explained in chapter 12 of his gospel that Judas was a thief and a robber, but John wrote his gospel many years after the fact, and the charges were never made or proven during Judas’ lifetime, so he cannot be held accountable for them by any man. However as early as chapter 6 of his gospel, John explained that Christ was referring to Judas when He said, speaking in reference to His apostles, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” So if Judas was an apparent follower of Christ, and he was never accused of transgressing the law or having committed any sin, how was he a devil? This fact alone disproves Weisman’s entire thesis concerning why Christ would call anyone a devil. Therefore if Christ referred to Judas as a “son of perdition” in John chapter 17, He must also have meant something other than what Weisman is claiming here, and “son of perdition” is more than a metaphor describing someone who is merely disobedient.

So now we shall discuss the use by Paul of Tarsus of the same phrase, “son of perdition” in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, but once again we will cite more of the passage than the portion to which Weisman referred, so we may see the entire context:

“1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”

Now there are a few problems with this passage as the King James Version interpreted it, which we must explain briefly before continuing. First, in the phrase “except there come a falling away first”, the verb in Greek is a past tense verb, and it should have been translated “because if apostasy had not come first”, so it does not point to some still-future event, as the Judaized Christians interpret it. Second, a lot of the archaic language is poorly understood today, but the verbs opposeth, exalteth, sitteth and shewing are all present tense, so Paul was speaking of his own time. Paul was explaining that apostasy had already come, and by that apostasy the man of lawlessness was already revealed, and that man of lawlessness was sitting in the temple in Paul’s time and pretending to be as God. Paul went on to explain that this situation would continue until the return of Christ – something which has not yet happened.

As a digression, Paul wrote his epistles to the Thessalonians while he was in Corinth, circa 51 or 52 AD, where he described Satan as sitting in the temple in Jerusalem. But John wrote the Revelation after 90 AD, where Satan’s seat is said to have been in Pergamos. Ostensibly, that is because while Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, the Edomite Jews themselves were not destroyed, and many of them had fled the city. Furthermore, Herod Agrippa II, who was king over the northern half of his grandfather’s kingdom of Judaea, but whom also had authority over the temple in Jerusalem, did not join in the revolt against Rome, but was overthrown by the Judaeans who did revolt, and with the forces which remained loyal to him he had fought on the side of the Romans. So he and many of the Edomites with him remained in power in Judaea, and the Romans rewarded his loyalty to them by expanding his kingdom to include Batanaea.

But going back to Paul’s time, let us briefly examine his statements in those verses 3 and 4 of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, from the Christogenea New Testament, first with verse 3:

3 You should not be deceived by anyone, in any way, because if apostasy had not come first, and the man of lawlessness been revealed; the son of destruction [or perdition],

The verbs for come and reveal are both in a past tense, the Aorist tense, which describes an action which happened, or at least which began to happen in the past, even if the action is still ongoing. There is no reason to believe that Paul was speaking of something which was going to occur in the future, except false doctrines in modern churches. Now for verse 4:

4 he who is opposing and exalting himself above everything said to be a god or an object of worship, and so he is seated in the temple of Yahweh, representing himself that he is a god.

Because of the apostasy which had already come, which must be a reference to the sin of the people of ancient Judaea, Satan was opposing and exalting himself as a god while seated in the temple of God. All of Paul’s verbs in this verse are in the present tense, so the result of the apostasy he mentioned in verse 3 had caused the conditions he described in verse 4, which were ongoing as he wrote his description of them, and for that reason in verse 4 he used only present tense verbs.

The historical background of this epistle of Paul is the fact that the high priests of the time were Sadducees, and it is demonstrable that they were Edomites, and not true Israelites. So Paul described the Edomite high priest as Satan, as an adversary, just as Christ had told those same adversaries that they could not believe Him because they were not His sheep, and explained to them indirectly in John chapter 8 that being bastards they were not true children of Abraham, which proves circumstantially that they were Edomites, since Christ also admitted their claim that they were Abraham’s seed, and which Paul later explained more explicitly when he wrote his epistle to the Romans in 57 AD, where we have already explained the reasons for his comparison of Jacob and Esau in Romans chapter 9.

As we had said last week, not all allegories or metaphors are equal, and when one is encountered, the context has to be considered and examined in order to determine what it means. Yet Weisman evidently never wanted his readers to actually examine each of these metaphors, but only take it for granted that they all described people who choose to be disobedient, mere sinners, rather than genetic devils.

Paul was not speaking of merely disobedient men. Paul was speaking of interlopers, intruders holding an office which did not belong to them, so they were pretending and not merely going astray. Jude upholds this interpretation of Paul’s words where he wrote in his epistle: “4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Scripture promises that all Israel shall be saved, so who are these men ordained to condemnation “before of old”? And if the enemies of Christ in Judaea were Israelites, as Weisman insisted, then how could they possibly have “crept in unawares”? Yet the entire epistle of Jude once again proves that these men of whom he speaks are the children of the fallen angels, and not of God.

As we proceed with Charles Weisman here in chapter 4 of his book, he continues to argue in defense of his lies:

Page 34:

Such phrases are used figuratively to describe the nature or spiritual disposition of the people involved. No implication is intended as to descent or biological parents. No one is literally descended from wrath, or light, or hell or the world, or the devil. “Devil” is simply an idiom or expression for evil, ungodliness, that which is against God, or something abnormal. The phrase “You have a devil” (John 8:48), for example, means only that “you are crazy” [citing George Lamsa, Idioms in the Bible Explained]. Likewise, the phrase “of the devil” means those who are evil or ungodly in the things they do.

We have already exposed these claims as lies, and once again Weisman offers no Scriptural proof to support them. They are merely emotional claims based on his own opinions. For example, as we also already explained, where the adversaries of Christ had told Him, as it is recorded in John 8:48, that He had a devil, the word is a different word than that for devil in John 8:44, where Christ told them that they were of their father the devil. In John 8:44 the word is διάβολος, and in John 8:48 it is δαιμόνιον, and these words have precise and distinct meanings. Christ did not tell His adversaries that they had demons, but instead, He attributed their behavior to the nature of their origin. So Weisman creates another lie by implying that where Christ told His adversaries in John 8:44 that they were of the devil, that they were merely “crazy”.

As we also already explained, apart from the fallen angels of Revelation chapter 12, only Cain and Judas Iscariot were ever called devils in Scripture. The term was used elsewhere of certain men, such as in Matthew chapter 4 or 1 Peter chapter 5, but only Cain and Judas were explicitly identified by name and called devils by Christ, in John chapters 6 and 8. Yet hundreds, or even thousands of other sinners, many whom sinned even far beyond the sins of Cain, were never called or described as devils in Scripture. Even Christ Himself encountered many sinners, and never called them devils, but instead had granted many of them mercy, pardoned their sins and healed them of their illnesses. In the Old Testament, the children of Israel sacrificed to devils, sacrificed their own children to devils, and appointed priests for devils, which is evident in the books of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, 2 Chronicles and the Psalms, but they themselves were never called devils.

It is not clear who wrote the 106th Psalm, but Asaph, a prophet of the captivity who is credited with being the author of at least a dozen of the Psalms, is a good guess. The Psalm certainly seems to have been written in the captivity. Earlier in this series of presentations we explained that because the children of Israel did not destroy all of the Canaanites and other aliens in the land of Canaan, they were to be punished, and those aliens themselves would be the vehicle by which they were punished, thorns in their sides and pricks in their eyes, as it warns in slightly different terms in Numbers 33:55, Joshua 23:13 and Judges 2:3. So this 106th Psalm makes that same correlation, and in part we read, where of course it is speaking of the ancient children of Israel:

34 They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them: 35 But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. 36 And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them. 37 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, 38 And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. 39 Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. 40 Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance. [A study of ancient pagan religions reveals that sexual acts were a part of their rituals. People got “married” at the altars over and over again.] 41 And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them. 42 Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand. 43 Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low [punished] for their iniquity. 44 Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: 45 And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies. 46 He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives. 47 Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise. 48 Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD.

This echoes, or reflects, the entire body of the words of the prophets where Yahweh had promised repeatedly that He would scatter Israel in punishment, and gather Israel in mercy. But in spite of their sins they were always His children, and they were never called devils. Here the children of Israel are said to have worshipped devils, have done all sorts of abominations on account of them, but they are never devils themselves. Rather, they are the children of God who would be chastised for their sin, and ultimately reconciled to their God when they are saved out of that chastisement. But the heathen which caused them to sin, who were generally referred to as Canaanites, are those whom the scripture refers to as children of wrath, children of the world, child of hell, children of disobedience and sons of perdition, as opposed to children of light which are the repentant of the children of Israel who have turned to Christ. Esau married Canaanite wives, his children intermarried with more Canaanites at Mount Seir and elsewhere, and for that they are also descended in part from Cain, the Rephaim, and other unidentified races which are all eternally opposed to God, the enemies of God, because they are bastards, and for that reason God wanted the children of Israel to kill them all in the first place. Yet they refused, they failed to do it, and instead they became the vessels by which God would punish the Israelites themselves for their sins.

As we also said in our last presentation, one of the purposes of Christ as it was expressed in the gospel of Luke was that the children of Israel would be delivered from the hands of their enemies, those same enemies who were put over them for their ancient sins. The Edomites, who were also Canaanites by blood, were the rulers in Judaea at the time of Christ. Charles Weisman wrote this book hoping to purposely lead anyone finding the truth of Christian Identity astray, so they would not find out the true nature of the enemies of Christ. By that, the Jews could maintain their “chosen people” myth. There could be no other reason for his lies.

Returning to Weisman, once he presented his list of metaphors he made another emotionally-based conclusion and said:

While these words or phrases are used metaphorically based upon the spiritual disposition and/or physical works of those involved, the interpretation is not spiritual or literal. That is, the people spoken of are not spiritual children of God or of the devil, nor are they their literal or physical children. If “children the devil” is literal, then so are “children of God,” and “child of hell.” No one is descended from some entity called “hell.”

Weisman denies that there are literal children of God, but Luke in chapter 3 of his gospel had explicitly called Adam the son of God. In Deuteronomy chapter 14, because the Israelites were also of Adam, and because as John said, their seed is in them, meaning that they were pure Adamites, Yahweh called them His children, and the fact is repeated later in other Scriptures.

So Weisman set out a list of metaphors with references to the book, chapter and verse where they may be found, and he makes some conclusions. But nowhere did he offer any substance from Scripture supporting his conclusions. Then when we examine those same passages in their literary and historical context, we come to entirely different conclusions! Ours are based on Scripture, history, and the history within Scripture, and Weisman’s are based on some unsupported emotional argument. We believe that in every instance, the words used in the metaphors he listed refer to a physical group of people, not merely to sinners or followers of the “wrong” religion. The children of Israel are urged to repent from sin and turn to the true religion, and they are never called devils for having been led astray. The other races are devils because they descended – at least in part – from the Nephilim, the fallen ones whom the words of Christ in the Revelation identify with the Devil. So we must let our readers compare the two methods of interpretation to determine for themselves which leads to the more accurate assessment of Scripture. But in my opinion, Weisman is just a clown and a deceiver, purposely lying because he hated the truth.

Continuing from the bottom of page 34, now Weisman begins a new argument:

Satanic Seedline proponents also make reference to the fact that Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees “serpents” and [a] “generation of vipers” (Matt. 12:34; 23:33). It is said that the word “generation” in the Greek (genema) means offspring or race. They claim Jesus was identifying these people as descendants of the serpent. The error in interpretation here is the same, as the words “serpents” and “vipers” are merely metaphors for crafty and underhanded people. They are not physical references. It is the same as when we call some one a jackass because they have been foolish and stupid. Jackass is a metaphor. We do not mean they are physically descended from a jackass, or that they are spiritually a jackass. They are a jackass because of their actions. Likewise, Christ merely called these scribes and Pharisees serpents and vipers because of their actions, employing the terms as metaphors.

Notice that Weisman wrote “It is said that the word ‘generation’ in the Greek (genema) means offspring or race”, without any further elaboration on how the use of such a word may indeed effect the manner in which the description of these people as serpents should be interpreted. It is not merely “said” that γέννημα (genema) means race or offspring, rather, it is true that γέννημα means race or offspring. According to Liddell & Scott’s Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, γέννημα is properly and primarily that which is produced or born, a child. It differs from γενεά in that γενεά refers to a race, stock or family in its entirety, where γέννημα refers to the produce of a race or family, to a child or all the children, depending on the context.

Furthermore, notice that Weisman once again did not heed the context of the statements by Christ, where in Matthew chapter 12 He said “ 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” The word for generation is γέννημα. The phrase is better rendered “offspring of vipers”. Christ is not telling His adversaries that they are vipers because they did something bad or believed something wrong. Rather, Christ is telling His adversaries that their parents are vipers, and for that reason, because they themselves are evil, they cannot possibly do or speak anything good!

This is at least the third time where we have demonstrated that Weisman does not know how to read, or perhaps has purposely misread a passage. First it was Genesis 64, then it was John 8:44, and now it is here in Matthew 12:34. In Genesis 6:4 we see that giants were in the earth long before the race-mixing event which is being described in that chapter. In John 8:44 Christ was calling His adversaries children of Cain, not of the Serpent. Now here we see Christ calling the parents of His adversaries “vipers”, and what sin could they have done which Weisman could explain?

Weisman fails to properly address the word γέννημα, fails to understand the implication Christ made by using it in the context of his statement, and offers yet another emotional argument in his attempt to refute our interpretation, once again based on his own logic and not on any supporting Scripture. If I call a negro a monkey that is one thing, and in some contexts it may not be offensive to anyone. But if I call the negro the γέννημα, or offspring of monkeys, I am saying that his parents are monkeys. Then if I say that the negro is from a γενεά, or race of monkeys, I am stating that all negros are monkeys. Now I do not find any offense in that, but where Christ said that His adversaries are the γέννημα, or offspring of vipers, He was speaking to a particular group, and calling all of their parents vipers. So was Christ a slanderer? Or was He stating an honest fact?

In Matthew chapter 23, which Weisman had also cited here, Christ said “29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. 32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

Because the history of the deaths of the prophets is obscure, and Old Testament history is not properly studied, it is easy to twist the Scriptures in order to make it appear that the Israelites themselves were the only people responsible for the deaths of all of the prophets.

There is not a lot of information in Scripture as to who had killed the prophets, but in the few places where priests or prophets are killed, it is not always the children of Israel who had done the killing. In 1 Samuel chapter 22 Saul was looking for someone to kill the priests of the temple, and found none until one of his herdsmen, Doeg the Edomite, who was also an informer against David, had volunteered for the task and slew 85 of the priests of Yahweh. In 1 Kings chapter 18 Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, was described as having “slew the prophets of the LORD”. She was the daughter of Ithobalus, or Ethbaal, the king of Tyre. But her father was a usurper, a pagan priest who slew the sons of Hiram, the friend of David, so that he could seize the throne. Jezebel was all her life a worshipper of Baal and had despised Yahweh, seeking also to kill Elijah. In 2 Kings chapter 9 Yahweh pronounces punishment upon Ahab and Jezebel in order to avenge the blood of the prophets.

Once again, calling His adversaries the γέννημα, or offspring of vipers, we see Christ is identifying their parents as vipers, by stating that they descended from vipers. Yet Weisman fails to explain what sin their parents could have committed in order to be called vipers. In Jeremiah chapter 2 it is admitted, addressing the remnant of Judah, that “your own sword hath devoured your prophets”. So at least some of the people in Jerusalem were responsible for this. But then, in Jeremiah chapter 24, we read where he speaks of that same remnant as it is taken into captivity: “1 The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. 2 One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. 3 Then said the LORD unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil. 4 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 5 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. 6 For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.” These are the people who ultimately heard the voice of Christ the Shepherd. But then there is another class which would be punished for everything that they had done, where Jeremiah continues: “8 And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt: 9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. 10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.”

As Jeremiah described it, these rulers themselves were not necessarily evil figs. Rather, they would be punished by being given over to evil figs. The evil figs in Jerusalem represent another class of people who were inherently evil, and they are never identifies as Judahites. There was already race-mixing going on in Jerusalem in the days of the Old Kingdom. For example, back in Jeremiah chapter 2 we read where Yahweh said “ 21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? [They became strange by mixing themselves with the Canaanites they had never destroyed.] 22 For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.” [Race-mixing, or being a bastard oneself, is the sin that one cannot cleanse.] Then in Ezekiel chapter 16, “2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, 3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.” These things were not said merely because the people were bad, but because the Canaanites had lived among them and caused them to sin, and when they race-mixed with the Canaanites, they became “strange slips”, so they couldn’t wash the nose off their face.

But the Canaanites and Edomites were never taken back into captivity, and when the returning people of Judah who reestablished themseves at Jerusalem had started into mingle with them after forcing them to convert to Judaism after 129 BC, that fulfilled the prophecy of the rulers of Judah being given over to the so-called “bad figs”. They would be condemned and run off the land, and that happened in the diaspora of Jewry which followed the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Speaking of Yahweh, Jeremiah wrote of them “9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.” Speaking of His adversaries, Christ said in Luke chapter 21: “for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” The so-called diaspora of the Jews is the diaspora of the enemies of God who had race-mixed with the ancient rulers of Judah.