The Word came to earth as Jesus of Nazareth (Jn. 1:1-4,14) and brought with Him a New Covenant.  This covenant, featured the same Law as did the Old Covenant, minus the sacrificial and ritualistic “law that was added because of transgressions–sins” (Gal. 3:19).  Jesus did away with that law at the Last Supper (Lk. 22:19,20).  The New Covenant also featured the same Gospel that His prophets had taught ancient Israel (Heb. 4:2).  This is the same Gospel the “Scripture” (Word/Jesus) preached unto Abraham (Gal. 3:7-9), which is the same Gospel God’s apostles taught the Jews and later the other Israelites, which is the same Gospel His apostles teach today.  Those few apostles are today obeying His command to “shout it (the Gospel) from the housetops” through radio, television and the internet as He opens doors for them to do so (Mat. 10:27).  Less than 1% of professing Christendom world-wide believes His Gospel message and obey it.  Most church people automatically reject it when they are exposed to it.  Jesus had the same problem.  Of the tens of thousands He spoke to, healed and delivered from demonic bondage, only about 120 believed and obeyed His Words.  What was taking place in the spirit world them continues today.  There was and continues to be a disconnect between God’s Word and those who own a copy of it.  Why?  Revelation 12:9 tells us that SATAN HAS DECEIVED THE WHOLE WORLD, INCLUDING THE CHURCH WORLD.  

The Apostle Paul wrote much of what is known as the New Testament in the form of letters to the various churches he founded.  In those epistles he told his Gentile converts what God required for entrance into the Kingdom of God.  Simply put, He required PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH COMES ONLY BY OBEYING HIS LAW. Disobedience to the Law is sin (1 Jn. 3:4).  The opposite of sin is righteousness.  Therefore, obedience to God’s Law creates righteousness which, if maintained throughout one’s life, results in salvation.  How did the first century church lose this very clear concept of the Christian walk which leads to eternal life?

The written history of God’s church from 31 A.D. to approximately 70 A.D. disappeared from public discourse and remained totally obscured for the next 100 years.  Then, in 170 A.D. the church suddenly came back on the scene. Only tis church in no way resembled the original church.  This 100 year period of church obscurity came to be known as the “Lost Century” of the church because whatever ever records that might have been produced have never been found.  What reappeared in 170 A.D. was the Catholic Church which had destroyed all written material relative to the early church and then had rewritten God’s rules of engagement and, due to her church/state arrangement with the Roman Empire, had the power to enforce strict adherence to Catholic doctrine.  Using the empire’s military as her enforcement arm, all groups and individuals within the empire were forced to “convert” to Catholicism.  God’s true saints, now outnumbered and running for their lives, grew smaller over time until there were very few true believers left by the time the United States of America and Great Britain rose up from obscurity to become the world’s mightiest nation and the world’s only true commonwealth of nations respectively.  This emergence to international acclaim on the world scene began to take place during the early 1800’s.  God raised up these two end-time national giants in fulfilment of His promise to Abraham.  From 70 A.D. until the early 1930’s the true Gospel of God was not preached throughout the world.  A minutely few people knew the Gospel, but they had no way to spread it.  Only a tiny remnant of believers had held onto God’s Truth and remained true to the Lord.

When God’s True Gospel did arrive on the global scene, both Catholics and Protestants had long ago rejected it.  As a result, the “truths” being preached and believed were significantly different from the Gospel the original apostles preached to the original Jewish and Gentile converts.  The New Covenant Church, its proponents had come to believe, was Gentile in nature.  “All that Jewish stuff” that the apostles had managed to spread throughout much of the known world had long ago been trashed.  Their new “truths,” which they had borrowed from the church had borrowed from her pagan “converts” now served as their foundational principles.  See the Introduction to this website for a list of such “truths.”  And because the Protestants had taken with them most of those principles upon their departure from the mother church, they too were theologically set, at least for a while.  Read Simon of Samaria: The Legacy.  Key word–Legacy.

Upon their departure from the Catholic Church, the Protestants eventually broke up into hundreds of mini-churches based on different interpretations of God’s Word.  As a result the “truth” being preached today varies according to the wishes of the hundreds of different groups that fall under the heading of “the church.”  Each group/denomination/faith, etc. proclaims its own version of righteousness.  God, however, has only one version–OBEDIENCE TO HIS LAW–the very Law which “the church” long ago nailed to the cross of Christ.  The various “churches,” though separated on the basis of Bible interpretation, find themselves united by one “truth”–THE ERADICATION OF GOD’S LAW, THE SAME LAW HE DECLARES ONE MUST OBEY IN ORDER TO BE SAVED.  I recently heard a preacher voice the error that permeates the whole of professing Christendom.  He said that the church guarantees salvation, meaning that belonging to “the church” makes salvation a surety.  This is a Satanic lie.  OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S LAW GUARANTEES SALVATION.  

Over time the world’s Catholics and Protestants were joined by the Jews in their zeal for their respective versions of the Christian walk, or as Paul calls it–race.  Paul has much to say about that race.  He noted that all salvation seekers run the race.  Though all salvation seekers run, only the one who runs according to the rules wins the prize–salvation (Heb. 12:1/1 Cor. 9:24).  The race rules established by God relate to a character trait that one must develop in order to inherit eternal life–RIGHTEOUSNESS.   Writing under the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul tells us in Romans 5:21 that the END RESULT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS ETERNAL LIFE.  He emphasized that running the race (joining a church, taking Jesus as Savior, tithing, Bible study, praying, etc.) does not save the soul.  Only righteousness ends in salvation (Rom. 5:21). In Matthew 10:22 Jesus tells us that only he who endures (in righteousness) until the end (of life) will be saved (upon the return of Jesus Christ).  Read Hope and Salvation.  Key word–Hope.

The problem relative to the Lord’s requirement for righteous lies in the fact that the church, including many in God’s church, still cling to Satan’s version of right character.  Both Catholics and Protestants have great zeal for their religion’s version of salvation and how to attain it.  Turn on the radio or television or the internet any time day or night and one can find someone preaching the Catholic or Protestant version of the gospel.  Much harder to find is someone preaching God’s Biblical Truth and its role in the attaining of salvation.  Read The Gospel of Christ.  Key word–Gospel.

Paul, writing to the Gentile church at Rome, said about the Jews: “I acknowledge them for having a REAL ZEAL FOR GOD, but not according to knowledge.  For they are IGNORANT of God’s righteousness and have established their own righteousness, not willing to submit themselves to God’s righteousness” (10:2,3).  The Jews had, and still have, a heart-felt zeal for God but had/have no understanding of New Covenant righteousness which is necessary in order to please God.  Within professing Christendom, the problem revolves around the Law.  God had promised true Truth seekers in Jeremiah 31:31-34 that He would give them His Holy Spirit which would write His Law upon their hearts.  Paul confirmed this in his letter to the Hebrew (Israelite) Christians in Hebrews 8:8-12.

Paul could relate to the Jews’ rejection of Christianity’s version of the Gospel.  As Saul of Tarsus, he had been a high-ranking proponent of the Talmud that had supplanted the writings of the prophets while the Jews were in Babylonian captivity..  This book consists of a collection of writings and thoughts of Jewish priests and other officials.  I have read parts of this tome and will tell you that it is vile and Satanic.  Paul noted that he had been extremely zealous for the Talmud before his conversion to the true God (Acts 8:1-3).  Therefore he understood the Jews’ zeal for its teachings which are man-centered and in no way reflect the righteousness commanded by the Lord of the Holy Scriptures.

Being totally sold-out to Talmudism, Paul, then known as Saul, had persecuted the church relentlessly, sending many of her parishioners to prison and some to their deaths.  He, like billions of church goers today, had great zeal for his religion, but “not according to knowledge.”  Those who have been lured into what is called “Chrisitanity” today (from which I am an escapee), have formed their own Bible, their own religion, their own god and christ and are zealous in their devotion to their brand of religion.

Upon meeting Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul changed totally.  For 3 years Jesus Himself taught Paul His Gospel (Gal. 1:12).  Earlier, Jesus Christ had spent 3 1/2 years teaching the 12 disciples His precepts and principles which, if believed and obeyed, would result in a believer’s righteousness.  Would Christ, a few years later, teach Paul a different Gospel leading to a different type of righteousness that excluded His holy, just, good, perfect and eternal Law?  Would he teach Paul that grace had replaced the Law, and that one could sin and get away with it as long as he repented regularly?  Did Jesus teach Paul that the New Covenant allowed the church to reject His rules of engagement and embrace heathen doctrines, beliefs and customs.  Is Christ divided?

No.  Jesus taught Paul and the other disciples New Covenant righteousness can be attained ONLY by obedience to His Gospel, the same Gospel He had taught their ancestors.  This Gospel included the Ten Commandments, including#4.  Nothing has changed.  L.J.