external linksHoly Scripture Searchable Online Bibles And Other Resources Biblios Bible Gateway Blue Letter Bible Christian Ministry Text and Audio Messages of the Prophet / Evangelist William Marrion Branham ChurchAges.com Living Word Broadcast Literary Resources Texts broadly relevant to the Christian heritage and worldview Christian Etherial Classics Library |
Thursday, November 9. 2017
Jerusalem Or Babylon - Of The Two ... Posted by Harald Kleemann
in Commentary, Holy Scripture at
13:38
Jerusalem Or Babylon - Of The Two Spiritual Seeds And Branches
When one considers, as from the standpoint of modern critical theory, the historic edifice of the Christian church – its monuments, institutions, ways and doctrines – one could be excused for thinking that this indeed represents the legacy of the biblical apostles, that this is the church spoken of by Jesus. Without spiritual understanding or knowledge of the relevant history, and within the modern context, this is the nigh conclusion. Indeed it is the default position, alike of Christians, as of critics of the Christian faith.
However, there are actually two very different kinds of church which may be traced through the historic record, and which are referred to in scripture as two spiritual seeds, branches or lineages. Indeed, of the thousands of Christian confessions, ultimately all reduce to either of these two spiritual types. And although, historically, the two are intermingled, they have nothing in common that is either significant or profound. In every essential respect they are spiritual opposites. Concerning these spiritual seeds our saviour stated (Matthew 13): He that sows the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As a prophetic statement this indeed holds for the historic Christian church entire. Of the authentic and biblical church, and the good seed of our parable, we may briefly state that it was born in a transformative spiritual experience, called the baptism of the Holy Spirit, around AD 33 in the city of Jerusalem – and that this, along with its spiritual descendants, is indeed the church which Jesus acknowledges as his own. For simplicity we may call it the church of Jerusalem – by etymology, the peaceful reign of God – and we may reflect on the divine promise of Acts 2:38 that such indeed would be the nature of the Christian church throughout the ages. It is born and nurtured of the Spirit of God, with all the blessings and empowerments this entails. However, as history and biblical prophecy attest, there also exists another and very different kind of church, whose spiritual lineage may be similarly traced throughout the ages of Christendom. This latter – an imposture and the tares of our parable – had its inception some three hundred years later under the Roman emperor Constantine at the ill-fated Council of Nicea of 325 AD. Whereas the true and original church thus came by divine creation in a spiritual birth, the latter and counterfeit arose by organisational birth – essentially in an act of political contrivance to secure the religious unity of the Roman empire. It was the beginning of the fourth century and Christianity had spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean. This despite significant persecution, and Constantine reasoned with typical Roman pragmatism, if you can’t beat them, join them. The evil spirit, as predator and opportunist, aligns itself with perceived positions of power, and so also in this example, that it might subvert Christianity from within. Thus it was – amidst fistfights, political scheming and intimidation – that the religious orthodoxy for the Christian world of nigh a thousand years was hammered out. If we reflect that the apostle Paul had already warned of a contrary spirit within the Christian fold, this same spirit had now come to a visible head. Clearly then, these two seeds or churches are entirely at variance in nature or character, as also born out by their respective fruit. Whereas the spiritual church gives birth to the Christ-child or son of God, the artificial system of organised religion brings forth an organisational child. These two are again at mutual odds, and it is the latter which persecutes the former – always. The first, being born of the Word, produces the Word (the divine logos), in keeping with the primal directive of Genesis that every seed should propagate according to its type. The second, being born of perdition, produces a reductive creed and, along with sundry absurdities and atrocities, the theological guesswork that informs the historic church. Yet for the greater part of seven church ages the two systems coexisted and intermingled, such that it was humanly impossible to distinguish between them. Indeed Jesus, in declaring his parable, warned against premature separation of the types – lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. In other words, he emphatically opposed the kind of denominational sifting by which our modern churches try to filter them, each according to their doctrinal template. You’re oneness, two-ness, three-ness – or whatever it is – you have no part in our group – that kind of thing. On the contrary, they are intended to grow together in the same field until they are separated, in the end of the ages, by the angels of God. Confounding the situation, through the ages, was the fact that sound biblical doctrine had largely become obscured, such that even the sincere and godly where confused therein – individuals such as Martin Luther, who was hugely instrumental in restoring biblical verity, yet mistakenly believed that the Jews represent the biblical antichrist. Indeed this is unsurprising if we consider that the entire gospel of grace had been turned on its head and transformed into something entirely other – by the functionaries of the organised church. As a rule we may unequivocally state: God’s Word comes to his prophets; the theologians invariably mess it up. Indeed, it is precisely because the latter are without spiritual understanding – theology taking the place of revelation – that the original apostolic doctrine was lost, and something other, as plucked from a hat, put in its place. While biblical restoration is necessarily ongoing, it has bypassed the great denominations – denominations which, while superficially reformed, are in essence still oriented toward Babylon. For it was typically centuries ago that they underwent reformation, and with the understanding of that bygone era. As to the new manna which falls afresh in every age, this they cannot receive, given their organisational inertia and constraint. This is especially so in our age. For the glacial pace of institutional transformation can in nowise cope with the quantum leaps of revelation as obtain within the spiritual church – the church of the freeborn, which is after the revealed Word of God. Thus we need not wonder at the ‘protestants’ who loudly decry the Roman apostasy of bygone centuries, while enthusiastically conjoining with the very same system today. What they fail to see is that religious organisation as such constitutes the biblical antichrist – an hierarchical structure with a global headquarters and universal directives issuing from mere man – in scripture (2 Thessalonians 2), the man of sin. Evidently they never did ‘come out of Babylon’ (as per Revelation 18:4), for they are eager to return to her – these Christian organisations – effectively, to join in a worldwide ecumenical mega-organisation, inclusive of all persuasions – the which, in biblical language, constitutes but the binding of the tares, prior to the burning of Sodom. That this ‘binding’ can only occur at the cost of language, of dialogue and discourse, this is evidently considered a small price for ostensible unity. Yet is this unity but the contrivance of Babel, which is the original seed of chaos and disorder, for, as we note in Genesis 11, language, as such, became abrogate. Thus the churches are demonstrating who or what, in truth, they recognise as their spiritual Mother and Father. It is not Jerusalem, the peaceful reign of God, but Mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots and abominations. It is not the transcendent Spirit of God, but an intellectual system of speculative theology. While these two spiritual seeds grow in the same field, their trajectory and ultimate destiny are quite at variance. In the adumbration of the end-times, as both are coming to their respective head, both revert to their original type. The church of Jerusalem conforms to the Word of God by the Spirit of God – by which indeed it came to spiritual birth. Meanwhile the church of Babylon conforms to the organisational head, by which it came to birth, in ecumenical global union. The spiritual bride, in other words, is becoming one with her spiritual groom, the Lord Jesus Christ, while the false worldly church has her union with Satan and the spirit of antichrist. A separation is occurring as the spiritual life is concentrating in the grain – in the actual seed – while the husk and stalk are spiritually dying. We see this latter in that the churches are fast repudiating the authentic gospel in favour of a speculative mystical humanism. Effectively, they have substituted the biblical rock of divine revelation for the morass of opinion. While thus the godly spiritual temple of the ‘New Jerusalem’ is all but complete, Christ being the head and chief cornerstone, the theological builders of this present world are increasingly saying, um ... it was all a mistake. Let us try again. Both, in the end, have their respective revival, and around the same time – the spiritual bride in a resurrection and rapture, wherein she meets her Lord in the air; the Church so-called in the aforesaid grand ecumenical union, the supposed precondition of universal peace. But what says the scripture (1 Thessalonians 5:3)? When they shall say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them ... and they shall not escape. Or, in the words of John the baptist, in speaking of the Christ, he will gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Thursday, November 9. 2017Dumb - Dumber - Modern Church
It is not enlightenment, intellectual emancipation and breadth of worldview, which is promoted by the churches, but informational thraldom, dependency and a narrow sectarianism. What we have seen in the course of the twentieth century is the concerted and relentless dumbing down of the Christian church.
Right knowledge brings emancipation. This has always been understood by repressive and controlling institutions, whether political or religious. Thus also it is with the institutions of organised Christendom, all of which serve one principal function, namely to securely keep their flock within their respective fold. It is not the boundless liberty in Christ, but the thraldom of religious bondage, which constitutes the experience of most confessed Christians. A religion, as we understand, denotes a binding or covering of the soul – as in response to human spiritual nakedness occasioned in the primordial fall. What the established churches offer, however, is not the grace garment of divine revelation, but the man-made covering of creedal theology. It is not to the invisible Christ that the church is yoked – meaning, its people – but rather to organisational structures and hierarchies. As a most striking example of this, and surely one of the most emphatic manifestations of the biblical antichrist in modern times, pope Francis recently declared a spiritual relationship with Christ, outside of the mediation of the Church, a dangerous thing. The attitude is endemic within organised religion, and we are unsurprised to learn that his institutional predecessors, employed despotic means of keeping the Bible from the common people. As decreed by the Council of Toulouse, 1229: ‘We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.’ William Tyndale, who in 1536 was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English, well understood the applicable rationale, stating: ‘The Church disallows owning or reading of the Bible in order to control the teachings and to enhance its own power and importance.’ This occurred in an age wherein discourse or information actually made a difference – to individuals, as to the course of nations – and indeed the newly invented printing press and resultant Gutenberg Bible contributed in significant measure to the overthrow of a tyrannical world order. While the strategies of control are perhaps more subtle today, given the wealth of information in the public domain, they are no less effective. For even today, upon centuries of religious retardation, congregations everywhere display the tight leash of informationally closed systems – and this not only within the Roman ‘mother organisation’, but all religious organisation. Within this context of institutional control, however, it is impossible for the authentic faith to flourish. On the contrary, religious culture and tradition has done more than any other force in history to dissuade the wider public from the Christian Bible as the revealed Word of God. And although the people are exiting these systems in droves, intuitively recognising their spiritual bankruptcy, the exodus is rarely for the biblical green pastures of transcendent revelation. Indeed it is ranking clergy, typically among the first to recognise the absurdity of their position, which are leading the exodus from biblical verity into universalism, liberalism and religious eclecticism. Thus, by curious irony of historic reversal, it is the very dogmatists who formerly burned their fellows at the stake – their institutional successors, to be precise – who are now proclaiming, oh, it was all a mistake. Let us seek a more nuanced reading! In short, it is not spiritual or intellectual maturity which is encouraged within the churches; it is not independence of thought or critical engagement across paradigm lines. The pervasive culture, rather, is one of intellectual infantilism, the spoon-feeding of a mealy-mouthed creedalism, in many cases reducible to the fundamentalism of mere semantic formulations – which is to say, to the idolatrous worship of empty words. Indeed the phenomenon may be observed throughout the wider culture. Within this new fundamentalism, this regression to magical modes of thought, it is words as such – not meaning or intent – which are deemed decisive. Within our postmodern conversational wasteland then, it is not so much the formal creed, but rather the constraint of political correctness which constitutes the intellectual straightjacket. The result is a new semantic tribalism, of mutually exclusive in-groups employing the ‘correct’ terminology. Within the Christian context it bespeaks a faith of cultural, rather than spiritual, determinants – and a spiritual body divided along cultural lines. Indeed, resulting from this spiritual and intellectual infantilism is a Christian faith which is hardly worthy of that name. As in the case of overprotective childrearing, the modern Christian is typically insecure and unable to make his way in the world of ideas. Far from being established, confident and secure, upon the rock of revelation, we find such Christians vulnerable to even the flimsiest of critiques. Did we not hear of actual deconversions from the faith, occasioned by outings of the so-called new atheism – intellectually vacuous diatribes as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (2006), and Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great (2007). And although a number of Christian apologists rose to respond, it was perceptive agnostics who, in no small measure, helped to redress the intellectual balance. As observed Princeton philosopher, David Berlinski, concerning atheism as the intellectual default within the modern secular West, it is an unthinking position ... atheists are typically flabbergasted to learn that their beliefs are paper-thin and their arguments generally puerile. Or, as the literary theorist, Terry Eagleton, in his 2010 Gifford Lectures, irreverently quipped concerning the phenomenon – they (the etiolated modern church) got the Ditchkins they deserve. Yet most churchgoers do not even come anywhere near reading Hitchens or Dawkins. The culture, as stated, is of finality and intellectually closure. While there are exceptions, popular Christianity is replete with warnings of the dire consequences – nay, the terrible dangers – of exposure to the ‘wrong’ kind of literature. Here it is not so much secularism which is deemed the great threat, but rather religious eclecticism. A standing army of inquisitors has within its crosshairs not only the spiritually heterodox New Age, but nigh any religious position which might undermine an assumed spiritual orthodoxy. This also includes any Christian position which deviates from the purity of doctrine as held – only and exclusively, of course (!) – within the creed of one’s choice. Here it is surely a poignant irony that apologists for the respective doctrinal camps mutually undermine and negate each other’s position, fully rendering denominational Christianity the absurd spectacle which it is – which indeed it must be – in the eyes of a perceptive observer. If one wonders why the Christian world must plummet into ever increasing sectarianism, the answer appears abundantly clear. It is that the principle of transcendent verity has been replaced by theological revisionism, each school effectively claiming that they – and only they – have a correct understanding. Intellectual hubris is the norm, instead of godly humility in the face of the incommensurate. A unifying principle is lacking in the church because divine providence and revelation have been abandoned for human endeavour and understanding. And indeed, as regards sectarian splintering, we have seen nothing yet – namely as the information content in the public domain is increasing exponentially, individual minds becoming ever more diversified, individuated and mutually estranged. The institutional answer to this embarrassing situation, with the grand idea of unity at all costs, is to abandon meaningful discourse altogether. This is the position at which the European church has arrived, and indeed it is the inevitable outcome whenever a rationalised humanism takes the place of the transcendent faith. As observed in my Apocalypse (see adjacent book offer), once the notion of the transcendent is discarded, the inevitable historic and cultural momentum conforms to the sequence – humanism (or romanticism), existentialism, nihilism. The spiritual and cultural nihilism of the European church is thus the final phase of a centuries-long process, and a harbinger of what is to come globally. The end of discourse – the dumbing down quite literally to the level of brute beasts – is thus, paradoxically, a long-term result of precisely that rational inquisition which was thought to bring intellectual emancipation (in the so-called Enlightenment) from what was deemed to be religious superstition. Today we understand that the precise opposite holds true. It was the cultural context of a profound Christian transcendentalism wherein – in Europe, and nowhere else – the scientific revolution took hold. Indeed we now understand that it is only in a context of a philosophical transcendentalism that rational intellect is able to flourish. In one of the most astonishing results of the twentieth century, this was demonstrated mathematically by the Princeton logician Kurt Gödel with his so-called incompleteness theorem. Briefly, this theorem states that in any formally consistent system there are axioms – or truths – which cannot be derived from within that system. One needs to transcend – to jump out of the system – in order to apprehend these truths. Conversely, it is a rationally ‘closed system’ which makes for intellectual entropy (or dumbing down), and ultimately leads to the nihilism which marks our cultural endgame. And thus we are able to conclude these less than illustrious remarks with an insight that is actually profound. Concurrently we have been able to unify our two seemingly disparate notions of creedal denominationalism and a religious dumbing down, showing how the former actually determines the latter. Thursday, November 9. 2017The End Of The Christian Gospel
Behold, the days come, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. Amos 8:11
So wrote the prophet Amos concerning Israel during the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah around 700 BC. By analogy – the Old Testament foreshadowing the New – we may observe the same prophecy applicable in our day at the close of our gentile dispensation. The time would come, so the prophet, wherein the words of God could no longer be heard – wherein the Christian Gospel would no longer be proclaimed. Effectively, that time is now. It is not merely that traditional churches are closing throughout the Western world, but that the church itself, conceived as a single entity, has ceased to defend and champion the Christian Gospel – where by church is meant the visible institutional edifice of Christendom. Here, for instance, items from the program of the German Evangelical Summit, Berlin 2017 – 1. Gay, Lesbian, Trans ... The Multiplicity Of Sexual Orientation 2. Coming-Out Workshop For Lesbian Girls And Women 3. The Return Of Racial Thinking – Aryan Esotericism And The New Right 4. Focus Rainbow – For A Soft Revolution Of Language 5. Et Asks: Can You See Me? – On The Deliverance Of Martians Within its 576 pages, according to a commentator, a reference to Jesus Christ could not be found. And these, note well, are the evangelicals. As for the Roman church in Germany, the ethos of its educational and moral agenda describes an historic full circle with a return to the cultural values of ancient Rome in its decadent phase. The problem, however, is not merely the humanist subversion of Christendom, whereby it is spoken, concerning Europe, of a post-Christian society. There is an underlying reason why such wholesale subversion could at all take hold, effectively replacing the Christian gospel – and it is the spirit of organisation and religious denominationalism, whereby the faith becomes something static and ossified, dogmatically fixated and incapable of further growth. Historically, the applicable dynamic is well understood. Spiritual revival, such as periodically transforms the Christian experience, typically lasts three and a half years. Within that time a new organisational structure arises to reflect the newfound understanding. With organisation, however, the movement goes to seed, in a manner of speaking, and stagnation supervenes. The organisational corpse may linger though the centuries, but it is spiritually dead – incapable of renewal, as of bringing souls to spiritual birth. The human response upon revival is to become fixated and proprietary – we have it now, so let us form an organisation, with ourselves as the head, and we will rule the kingdom – something of that order. Human administration takes the place of the Holy Spirit, and the spiritual body, now incapable of receiving new information (further revival), ceases to grow, to mature and develop, and so – necessarily, inexorably – inclines unto death. When Martin Luther, for instance, overthrew the hold of the medieval papacy with the truth of justification by faith, many in that age were justified by the faith of God. But when John Wesley taught the further truth of sanctification, many Lutherans could not receive it. Similarly, and it turn, when modern Pentecost arose with the restoration of the spiritual gifts, the Wesleyans could not receive it. Which brings us to our present age and – significantly – as the Word of God is being restored in fullness, institutional Pentecost is unable to receive it, leaving it – the denomination – the empty husk it is today. The tension within organised Christendom today is thus between a secular, liberal humanism on the one hand, and an archaic doctrinal formalism on the other – and neither holds a prospect of salvation for the enquiring soul. However it is not merely the traditional mega-organisations, but also many of the so-called independents, which cling to their non-biblical doctrines with the tenacity of an octopus holding its prey. Like their organisational counterpart, they reserve their pulpit for teachers with a liberal-arts understanding of the Christian gospel – gentle Jesus meek and mild, born in a manger, and ah ... Mama, how does the rest of it go? – in other words, two years of Bible school and not a clue concerning the faith as once delivered to the saints. Yet the depth of historic subversion within the Christian tradition seems a matter nigh inconceivable to the greater confessional body within the churches. The Christian experience – or rather, the lack thereof – is quietly taken for granted – along with the Nicene creed, the Westminster confession, or whatever the preferred theological figleaf. While mere doctrinal confession might have availed in the dim twilight of the reformed traditions, now that the apocalyptic seven seals have been opened, the insufficiency is everywhere apparent. Here, moreover, we see the fulfilment of Matthew 13, from him that has not shall be taken that which he has ... or what he thought he had. Popes, bishops and ministers of whatever persuasion, seeing that the emperor indeed is naked, are of themselves relinquishing the hybrid contrivance of reformation theology – typically to reinvent the faith in the context of post-modern relativism. Their congregations, the while, seeing that the larder indeed is bare, are staging a mass exodus, usually for the greener pastures within some form of spiritually heterodox universalism. What is the reason for this universal failure to appropriate the genuine biblical faith? It is not the Word of God which has failed – God’s eternal provision, divinely destined to accomplish its purpose. It is rather that, almost from the beginning, the revealed Word has been ill esteemed by those who, in the words of Paul, received not the love for the truth – rulers and ecclesiasts who, historically, valued their own ideas, their creeds and traditions, above the revealed Word of God. Without revelation of the spiritual logos, however, spiritual understanding cannot arise, and thus also no authentic biblical faith. The universal erosion in our age of the ostensible or apparent faith – that species of make-belief which passes for faith – shows that it was but a pale simulation of the authentic biblical faith. As stated, a creedal or confessional faith was viable in the spiritual outer courts of bygone ages. Now that we are bidden, however – through restorative biblical revelation – to enter the Most Holy, the faith of the reformation fathers must inevitably fail. Of course there are those – in scripture, the spiritual bride of Christ – who, by divine foreknowledge, are predestined to apprehend the revelation of this age, and thus the full redemptive efficacy of the Word of God. For these blessed souls the revealed Word of God – which the modern churches all but deny – will produce a resurrection and a rapture. May we, therefore, who earnestly contemplate these truths, be part of that small universal body. |
QuicksearchArchivesCategoriesCalendar
Syndicate This BlogArkangelArkangel is the weblog of writer Harald Kleemann, specifically regarding his work on biblical Christianity. Readers’ comments are naturally their own and their appearing on this site should not be taken to signify approbation by Arkangel, which is to say, its author. The same applies to linked material offsite, which should be taken on its own merits.
Readers may note that comments and trackbacks are not presently enabled. |