5.4 Another Gospel

The motivation for another gospel is always contempt for other Christians. Yet contempt asserts its own superiority actively by making other Christians and their doings to be inferior.
In this effort, contempt has a major enemy, the Lord Jesus Christ who is present here and now, and who not only has come into full union with these Christians, but also shares flesh with them. If Jesus is True and All-Salvation now, then I must humble myself before my brethren; I cannot be “superior.”

But contempt cannot attack Jesus directly, for then all Christians, even nominal ones, would flee away. Therefore Jesus and salvation are “allowed,” but contempt must convince the Christian that both are limited and only someday.

Adjusting Our Diagram. In order to show how the gospel of death works in Nicene theology, I have altered our diagram of the seven spirits of anti-Christ just slightly. In this case, contempt looks through a “God” just like himself to see other Christians outside of God. Notice the hands of contempt, one towards “Christ” and the other towards “is not enough.”

Following Motive. I could not understand the confusion of Nicene and Calvinist theology because I had not seen everything through the motivation of contempt, the need to severely limit Jesus without completely “getting rid” of Him.

Contempt seeks control over other Christians, and the best way to get Christians away from an All-Salvation, All-Here-NOW Jesus is to persuade them that the Christian life means that the Christian is always at war with himself. As Calvin said, “When you see ‘God,’ then you will know just how wicked you are.” Let me paraphrase to show the real meaning. “When I see you through a ‘God’ who knows evil, then you are contemptuous and not as the Lord Jesus to me.”

Contempt and Its Allies. I want to explain our adjusted diagram briefly, first, and then in more depth, second. Contempt for the Christian and jealousy against Jesus are the motivation, as Paul said in Galatians. These [Christian preachers] falsely appear zealous towards you in order to separate you from [Jesus], and in order to get you to be zealous towards them. – All those who wish to put on a good show of appearance inside of flesh compel you… so that they can boast in [their victory over] your flesh.

Contempt has two weapons or allies, a false spin that sounds “Biblical” even while it is anti-Christ. On the right hand of contempt is a limited and above-you Christ and on the left hand of contempt is an atonement to be measured and sold.

Targeting the Believer. The target of contempt is the believer in Jesus to be made “inferior” so that “I” might be “superior.” Now, God has put the believer entirely into Himself, into the Holy of Holies inside of Christ Jesus, and knows nothing about any disconnection from Himself. God sees the heart of every believer as His Mercy Seat, as Love poured out.

Contempt says one thing. “Look at yourself, it’s clear to everyone that you fall short of God.” As Augustine said (I paraphrase only slightly), “God, You cannot fill me with all of Your fulness, not yet, because I am still evil.” Then, the three arrows targeting the believer in Jesus are all coming out from contempt, but they destroy in slightly different ways.

Good and Evil Together. All three of those arrows depend on the image of a God who is both good and evil. God is allowed a bit of goodness; God loves you – BUT! The “BUT” means that you are never to forget that God is also evil (falsely called ‘holiness’). And when good and evil are set together, evil always has the upper hand. “Torment” is always more populated than “bliss.”

The “above-you Christ” says to the believer, out from contempt, “You have to get up out of yourself before I will allow you to “know me. Only your death will bring you to me.” Then, a measured and sold atonement says to the believer, out from contempt, “You’re not really a ‘Christian’ unless you win ‘God’s’ (my) approval with your performance. Buy me with your effort to be like God (godly).”

A First Replacement for Jesus. Let’s start at the beginning, with the passing of John and thus with John’s replacement in Ephesus, Irenaeus. Irenaeus is known as the first “Church Father,” a good Christian man. Yet when you look at his writing and his ministry, you see that he has already dismissed the Lord Jesus Christ as “not here” and therefore, irrelevant.

When you read John, you read someone who knows the Lord Jesus, personally and for real, inside himself as his only LIFE. And John knew only a plurality of ministry in service to the Church. When you read Irenaeus, you read all kinds of good things “about” God, but not a knowing of living in John 14:20. And Irenaeus, in order to protect God’s people from opponents, made himself the first solitary “bishop” over a church.

Vanishing Verses. From the passing of John on, Ephesians 1:23 has no meaning. A gathering of Christians in a local place is definitely NOT the fulness of Christ, and Jesus does NOT fill all inside of all who believe into Him. A mighty and definitive gospel verse just vanished from sight, along with all similar claims in the Bible. Yet even more than Ephesians 1:23, Hebrews 1:3 also vanished. Jesus sustaining ALL by His power-filled Word, here and now, has no place.

Then, there is another separation that dismisses a real and present Jesus besides separating Jesus from the believer and from His Church. Jesus must also be separated from the Bible. And so the words of the Bible are no longer Jesus Himself entering you written upon your heart, but rather, God’s instructions for you to perform the “Christian life,” the knowledge of right and wrong.

The Planting of Tares. Finally, everything in Calvin’s theology makes sense; we know the driving purpose. We know why carefully selected verses are put in the wrong place and why others are completely ignored.

Remember that the translation of the Bible into every language other than Greek comes first out from Jerome, and most modern translations, especially in English, come out from John Calvin. To be effective, contempt must plant tares into the Bible itself, not very many, but just the right ones. Jerome planted the two most important tares into our Bibles, tiny little things, like the seed of the mustard plant, as Jesus said, but seeds that have grown into mighty structures filled with demons. Those two tares are “of Us” in Genesis 3:22, and the Latin “eternal” as the translation of the Greek “aeon.”

Redefining God. By this tiny, tiny, deception, Jerome altered the image of God completely for all Christians from then until now. Satan defined God as “one who KNOWS good and evil.” In defining God, however, the word “to know” means “to be.” To say that God “knows” evil is to define God as evil. But you can’t get Christians to accept the evil side of God (God hates what you are), without also establishing that evil is eternal.

Now, we must stay with motive. You see, Jesus is bad enough in the fight over the devotion of the Christian. The biggest problem by far is God coming Home. All Christians know and confess that God is good. To make them afraid of God, they must be convinced that He is also evil.

Limiting and Selling. Now, I am not presenting a chronology of Church history, rather, I am speaking out from our adjusted diagram of the seven spirits of anti-Christ, to show the logic of contempt in the ordering of Nicene theology and the ‘gospel’ of death. For that reason, I am just picking the best examples.

Now let’s turn to limiting and selling the atonement. This practice was the one thing that made Jesus angry. The Pharisees made big bucks by requiring everyone to purchase offerings only from them and for several times more than normal cost. – And separate from Moses’ instructions. The same thing in Catholicism was penance and indulgences. Punish yourself on the one hand and buy forgiveness from us on the other hand. – And you CANNOT touch the Mass.

Weeping over Sin. But what about deeper truth Pentecostal Calvinism? Look at the real meaning of the words spoken against me on Facebook. “People get a full atonement salvation” – by ‘buying’ it from ME, that is, presenting a sufficient performance to gain my approval.

This practice of “paying for the atonement with outward show” is then called “gospel repentance.” Yet the one so doing is weeping over sin, not responding to the entrance of Jesus. Weeping over sin is self-worship. Being filled with the joy of Jesus is repentance. So – you can talk about Jesus all you want, so long as you keep Him just beyond your reach and away from your flesh. And you can talk about redemption all you want, so long as you affirm that it has changed nothing at all in the present day.

Seeing Evil. Let’s now discuss the three devastating ways in which the believer in Jesus is targeted by the theology of contempt coming through a “God” who is against you. Contempt says, “I see you.” This is judgment; this is definition. This is a devastating action. This seeing is called “the total depravity of man.” Inside this doctrine are many true things, but the foundation of it is just one more way to cast Jesus aside, that He is NOT the continuous and active Source of all things through His good-speaking.

Then, to replace Jesus, it turns sin in the human into a “god,” that is, into the source of this sentient being called a human. Seeing through evil is the worship of evil; it is found only inside of human fantastical imagination.

Calling Jesus Evil. This doctrine, then, is made much worse by being applied to the believer in Jesus. So, you asked Jesus into your heart, you are redeemed, you believe in Jesus, SO WHAT! You are still the same evil thing you always were. And your will is always at war against God’s will. – Jesus lives in your heart? That’s just a nice idea for children. THE BIBLE SAYS that your heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. I SEE YOU as evil, as always falling short of God, sinner.

You see, contempt cannot worship evil except by imagining a “far-away” Jesus, for, in fact, it is Jesus inside the believer in all glory that contempt is calling “evil.”

Waging War Against Self. But here we are concerned with the impact of this judgment on someone who loves Jesus, but who believes the speaker because of all the Bible verses thrown around helter-skelter. The result of this evil judgment is that a believer then, almost unwillingly, turns away from Jesus inside and sets his focus on sin in the flesh, that he might wage war against himself. This evil judgment is the cause of a believer living inside a continual story of cursing self. – “I am so ashamed of myself.” By tricking the believer to curse self, contempt has successfully drafted the believer into war against the Lamb.

And yes, for about eight years of my adult Christian life, I believed that I was at war with God and that God could not save me. It was hades, yet it was also God bringing me to no sufficiency in myself.

Mocking Christ and the Believer. Then, when contempt uses a caricature of Christ through which to see and to judge a fellow believer, this is mockery of both Jesus and the one in whom He dwells. If you are a son of God, then come over here and walk through this wall, and we will worship you.

But consider this profound definition. – Jesus is perfect, and you are not. This is a battle-ax blow severing Jesus and the believer. It places Jesus “high above” and the believer “far below.” Its purpose is not to get rid of the believer, but to keep control of the believer by getting rid of Jesus. Then the mockery continues – “You have to die to yourself before you can ever know Jesus. You will see Jesus only after you are dead.” None of this is Biblical; all of it comes out from a hatred of God-All, here and now.

Sisyphus and Tantalus. The result of this evil seeing as it enters into the believer is to get the believer endlessly running back and forth between Christ and self. The believer is not split into two, but into three, out of breath and blue of face. Trying, trying, trying, so very hard to “die,” and being utterly incapable of doing so. Trying, trying, trying, so very hard to reach Jesus, but always falling short. This is the triumph of Sisyphus and Tantalus in the Christian life, the triumph of hell.

But placing DEATH as the only way to Salvation and to the knowledge of God is not the end goal of contempt. The end goal of contempt is an orgy of self-worship inside the Church.

Love – BUT! Limiting the Atonement wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ and then offering it for sale has a very sinister purpose. The Bible verses chosen are very selective, with the big ones treated as “heresy.”

Think of this. “By this we have known LOVE because Jesus set forth His soul for us.” – “This Jesus who loves me, this Jesus who trades Himself for me, for my sake.” – “That they might be with Me where I am – that the Love with which You love Me might be inside of them, and I inside of them.”

All very true, very true, back then, up there, and someday, but Jesus is NOT speaking of you right now. Yes, God loves you, BUT now its your turn to prove that you love God by your own outward performance.

Selling the Atonement. It is in the Atonement that we have the most savage obliteration of Jesus and His ability inside the believer. By offering to sell the Atonement for human works, contempt elicits inside the Church an orgy of pretending, a dance of faces, and putting on a show. Oh, look at me, how much I just love everybody, how godlike I am.

I had the occasion of observing a pastor bring a small number of his flock, very much under his control, into a place where I was sharing Christ. While this pastor was there, a sister of his flock, who had been attending my sharing, put on the same religious show I once knew so well, for the sake of the pastor, “Look at how much I am of the Spirit. Approve of me, thou man of God.” That was not the real problem, however.

An Orgy of Outward Show. The real problem was the contempt in this pastor, seeing his flock through the eyes of an evil ‘god,’ who was satisfied in self with such a show of performance, none of which was real. Except, I correct myself again. That’s not the real problem. The real problem is that the pastor as well disappears into this orgy of outward show, lying and crying and calling it “Christ,” as part of the same.

Here is the end of this show of pretending. “Hide us from the… wrath of the Lamb!” And Satan, the god of contempt, is the one laughing, for he has turned the Church into an orgy of self-worship against the One who loves her. This is the Christian Church keeping God OUT!

Our Diagram Again. Let’s start with our diagram again and go through everything from a slightly different perspective. This will become more important in the next chapter when we place the overcomer upon the Mercy Seat instead of contempt.

Contempt sees you through a ‘God’ just like itself, a ‘God’ who knows evil, who is superior and distant.

Contempt Sees You. Contempt sees you inside your flesh, inside a ‘human nature’ that is always at war with God. Contempt judges you by outward appearance and sees that you never measure up, for you are always falling short. You cannot know God because you are evil.

Contempt points you to a Jesus who is far away from you right now, a someday Jesus, an above-you Jesus. Contempt assures you that when you see God through this Jesus you will know just how wicked you really are.

Then contempt instructs you that the only way for you to know this “Christ” is to get up out of yourself, to die to the flesh. If you don’t know how to do that, it’s because you are rebellious. Contempt also assures you that you will not see Jesus until after you are dead. Death is the way to life; too bad hades follows after, too bad that you are frightened out of your wits.

Lying and Unbelief. Contempt points you to a limited and ineffective atonement that comes through a God who is against you. This atonement does not actually change you right now, yet you must buy it from us with your “Christian” performance.

Contempt instructs you to finish the work Jesus back-then failed to accomplish towards you, by your outward show of god-like(li)-ness. Try and try, and then cry enough, and contempt will allow you a bit of “atonement.” Dishonesty is okay; let’s all pretend to be like God(ly), under the terror of the “wrath of the Lamb.”

~ Christianity as it has been in this world could never be the Salvation of God, for towards self, it lies and towards the gospel, it refuses to believe. Dishonesty and the refusal to believe cannot enter or be the City of God. Yet Jesus carries each one who is His.

A Mixture. I realize that I must add one more piece of understanding to this layout. Many who love Jesus will read through this and say, “Well, some of these things I recognize, but I have always related to God through faith in Jesus, in spite of any wrong thinking.” This is absolutely and always true, for Jesus alone is Salvation, and He is always moving by His Spirit inside any Christian context as the true gospel of Life, which He is.

The problem is not the absence of the true gospel, but the mixture of the two. This is not a problem for Jesus, for He carries all who belong to Him all the way through the darkness. The problem is the years of unnecessary hades in which God’s precious people suffer because they do not truly know the Life in whom they live.

Christ ALL First. As we have shared, the motivation of contempt is base, childish, crude, and meaningless, yet the Christian church has danced to its tune through the centuries. I believe that in this lesson I have finally demonstrated the grotesque evil of this thing.

My purpose is not to expose evil, but to exalt Christ. Here is the only salvation, the very thing of which the orgy of performance is afraid. Lawlessness will be unveiled which the Lord Jesus will eliminate with the breath of His mouth and will render inoperative by His presence made visible and known (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

Christ is ALL first, before anything not-Christ could ever vanish away.