On the Gospel of John, Part 45: Gods and Emperors

In our last presentation of this 18th chapter of the Gospel of John we attempted to answer the question which was posed by Pontius Pilate, where he had asked what is truth? with the assertion that real truth is what is relative to the Will of God. So Pilate did not receive an answer to his question, since, as we have also frequently explained throughout this commentary, Yahweh God endows men with wisdom and knowledge on a need-to-know basis. So Pilate did not really need to know the truth, since it was written in the prophets that the Christ had to die, as Christ had also frequently told His Own disciples, and perhaps if Pilate had learned the truth in his conversation with Christ, the Will of God may have been hindered. Therefore it must have also been the Will of God that Pilate did not find the truth.

There are apocryphal tales which indicate that Pilate had later learned the truth concerning Christ, but I would not repeat any of those. Another lie is the description of the fate of Pilate as it is recounted in the so-called “lost” chapter of Acts, a forgery which represents itself to be the 29th chapter of Luke’s second book. There are Identity Christians who promote that work as “truth” when it is actually an absolute fraud. As we already explained here, Pilate had remained stationed in his office in Judaea until 36 AD, or perhaps as late as 37 AD, when he was relieved after complaints of how he had handled a sedition in Syria, and he returned to Rome. From that point he disappears from the historical record, and later Christians who reported his having committed suicide, such as Eusebius of Caesareia, lacked any substantiation to establish the claim as fact.

On the Gospel of John, Part 43: My Will, or His Will?

The first pronoun in the subtitle is meant not in reference to myself, but to the reader or listener of this presentation.

Presenting our commentary on the lengthy prayer of Yahshua Christ which is found in John chapter 17, I hope to have explained sufficiently what it is to be “not of the world”, as Christ had prayed for His disciples and said: “16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” But in spite of that, I understand that there are always going to be lingering questions, as it is a broad topic with great implications as to how a Christian should conduct himself as he abides within the world. It is certainly evident that Christians must remain in the world physically if the Kingdom of God is ever going to be “on earth as it is in heaven”, so Christ had also prayed saying “15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” Therefore Christians must live and survive in the world, while at the same time eschewing the evils which are also in the world.

Just as soon as I had made that presentation, the very next morning, I confronted an individual who is involved in some of our Social Media circles, a professed Identity Christian, who was speaking of American presidential politics when he made the statement that “I'm morally obligated to continue to vote conservative so more ultra liberal communists don't get elected. That will at least give us time to reach more of our people with the truth until we can get someone worthy of the position.” But this is precisely the sort of worldly attitude that Christians are expected to depart from. Perhaps I would have ignored his statement, except that he said he was “morally obligated”, which startled me because it is an idea which is found nowhere in Scripture. Engaging with the world in order to choose what is perceived to be the lesser of two evils is still a conscious decision to engage with evil. It is almost as if claiming that we should decide which of the seven heads and ten horns of the beast of the Revelation might treat us more nicely, and cast our vote for it.

On the Gospel of John, Part 42: Out of This World

It is easy for any so-called priest or pastor to tell other men what to do, and to find one verse of Scripture or another to justify his position, especially if he does not have to do those things himself. So if he is not humble, he himself may ultimately become a parasite, feeding off the body of his flock while they themselves wither and die. This is probably the state of most denominational churches today, and especially the Roman Catholic Church, which is why they always seek new audiences, for which they turn to South America, Africa and Asia. No different than the international banks and global corporations, the so-called churches constantly need to find new ways to satiate their thirst for money and power.

So far as can be determined, it was John Selden, a controversial 17th-century scholar and jurist who had opposed many of the policies of the Church of England, who had first recorded the saying “Do as I say, not as I do”, and when he wrote those words he was attributing that sentiment to the preachers of his time. So we see that at least one learned Englishman understood the frequently-occurring hypocrisy of those who put themselves in authority over men, as Christ had also said of the Pharisees: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: 3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.” The scribes and Pharisees of ancient Judaea were the teachers of the law, but they themselves did not keep the law. Fortunately for us, Moses’ seat was torn down by the Romans in 70 AD, and today no man can claim to occupy it.

In recent times, and especially among Identity Christians, we often hear the admonition to “get out of Babylon”, as the saying usually goes, and for many people that evokes the thought that Christians can somehow go off into the wilderness and survive on their own while they isolate themselves from a corrupt Society. But this is impractical, and perhaps even impossible. There is no more hospitable wilderness which may be peacefully inhabited, especially since modern transportation and surveillance technology have put even the most remote areas of the habitable earth under the scrutiny of earthly rulers. Perhaps there are a few exceptions, but the vast majority of Christians today cannot “get out of Babylon” and continue to feed and shelter themselves and their families. So even before we argue over the hypothetical prospects of success, we must inquire as to whether this is even what Christian leaders should be teaching.

The Higher Calling, a review of a Sermon by Bertrand Comparet

Perhaps it is fitting that each time I begin a review of a sermon by Comparet or Swift, or an essay by Emahiser, that I do so with reflections on my own early Christian Identity studies. However I had originally embarked on my studies because I was compelled by sermons such as these from Comparet or Swift, and I was helped along the way by Emahiser.

This sermon, however, is important to me because it shows that regarding one critical issue, I have always generally agreed with Comparet, while many other Christian Identity pastors or teachers and their followers have different opinions which are not so well-grounded in Scripture. Often, those who have disagreed with me on this issue have even attributed to Comparet a position which he did not hold. That critical issue is the fact that all Israel shall be saved.

That “all Israel shall be saved”, the Bible states rather plainly, as it is found in both the letters of Paul in Romans chapter 11 and in the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 45. The Scriptures also lead us to make the same implication in many other places. But in spite of that, many Identity Christians argue against it, and even despise us for holding to the assertion. However we would assert that their doctrines are remnants of their denominational baggage, and they are not founded in Scripture.

There is one popular belief that is probably found in every Christian denomination, which is that people who are generally “good” in their patterns of behavior go to heaven, and people who are “bad” in their patterns of behavior, or who have been especially “bad” at one time or another, are in danger of going to hell forever. To that, the Roman Catholic Church added the concept of purgatory, as priests needed an angle by which to extort men out of their money, convincing them that their loved ones were stuck and couldn’t quite make it to heaven without the intervention of the priests.

Being raised Catholic to some degree, as a young man I had the same general understanding regarding these teachings on salvation, except that I don’t think I ever really believed, or perhaps only never cared about, the claims concerning purgatory. So when I found Christian Identity, sermons such as this made an impression which led me to inquire into these things more carefully, and when I began to actually study the Scriptures, especially in their original languages, the conclusions which I reached remained in general agreement with Comparet’s position on this issue, and perhaps the differences we may have are due only to semantic differences.