Paul warns in 1 Timothy 4:1-5, that in the last days false teachers will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits. The incongruity of preaching from many Christian pulpits today creates discord and disunity in the church, spawned by doctrines of demons. In this article I will examine three erroneous teachings circulating right now. They create a disconnect that is contrary to Christ’s prayer for unity among believers (John 17:20-23). Proverbs 6:19 states that God hates, “a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”
These days its not uncommon to hear of Christian leaders teaching that in order to be saved you must keep the Torah, citing that Jesus kept the Torah, the disciples kept the Torah and that Paul kept the Torah as the rationale. Saturday Sabbath keeping and refraining from eating pork top their list. This is flawed logic.
Keeping The Torah
These misguided teachers conveniently overlook Paul’s writings regarding grace and how Gentiles fit into the family of God. In Ephesians 2:13-16, he concisely sums up Christ’s accomplishments through the cross and clearly states the status of the Mosaic law in the lives of true believers:
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one new body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility.” Paul is saying that both Jews and Gentiles are saved by Jesus, not the Torah.
Furthermore, Paul writes in Romans 7:1-6 that true believers have died to the law and have been raised to new life with Christ, and in Galatians 3:25 he teaches, “Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.” Paul also wrote in Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
And in Colossians 2:13-14, Paul declares, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
Additionally Acts 15:10 addresses the issue head on, “Now then, why do you test God by putting on the necks of the Gentiles a yoke that neither we or our ancestors have been able to bear?” Scripture is clear. James wrote:”For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10). If people insist on following the Torah, Christ is of no value at all!
The Name Of Jesus
Another fallacious notion being promoted and is gaining a following, is the teaching that Jesus is not the name through which believers must be saved as Acts 4:11-12 teaches. Proponents of this false teaching claim that the name Jesus was a Roman invention and that no one existed by that name in first century Judea.
They insist that Yeshua is the name that must be used and that names cannot be translated, therefore the name of Jesus belongs to an illegitimate savior, even a fictitious man. Nothing could be further from the truth. The arguments even go so far as to assert that the letter J wasn’t invented until the 1500’s and the name Jesus could not have existed before then.
What is in a name? Yeshua or Joshua is the Hebrew name. It is translated into Greek as Jesus. The two are one and the same name. Similarly, Mashima or Messiah are His Hebrew titles and are translated into Greek as Christ.
Yeshua HaMashima is translated as Jesus the Christ in Greek. No other identity is ever implied or intimated in scripture. The apostle Paul was fluent in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and was completely qualified to translate Hebrew to Greek when he wrote over half of the New Testament.
Paul’s credentials exceed modern scholars’ due to his firsthand knowledge of the cultural nuances of the region in the first century and place his interpretation of scripture above others in understanding the gospel. Not to mention his intimate relationship with the risen Christ.
Paul wrote that Jesus is the name of our Lord and Savior in Greek, the original language of the New Testament. His target audience spoke Greek and understood that Jesus was none other than the man who was crucified and rose from the grave. Coincidentally, Peter’s Aramaic name was Cephas which means “rock” and was transliterated into Greek as Petros (also rock) and Peter in English. Are these three different men? Of course not.
Furthermore, it doesn’t matter when J began to be used since the early translation of Iēsous is strictly confined to the Christian context and is not found elsewhere in Greek literature. In Latin, I and J are different forms of the same letter, so IESVS is translated as Jesus.
Similarly, the name Joshua was Yeshuah in Hebrew and was translated as Joshua in the Septuagint. These translations maintain the identity of the person being written about and preserve the integrity of the scriptures through the context with which they were intended.
The two names are synonymous and identify one man therefore, there is no other name given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). Leading up to this proclamation, in Acts 4:10 we are told, “then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth (Iēsous Christos Nazōraios) , whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.”
Those who erroneously say that in order to be saved, believers must call upon the name of Yeshua HaMashiach and assert that to call upon Jesus is worshipping a false god, are performing linguistic gymnastics in an effort to gain followers. Nothing more.
Ultimately, it is the person of Jesus Christ who saves. When Paul wrote Philippians 2:10-11, Greek was the language he used. So when we read, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” we are reading Iēsous Christos Kyrios (Jesus Christ is Lord). Paul did not write Yeshua HaMashiach is YHWH because he wrote in Greek, not Hebrew.
Paul is referencing Isaiah 45:23 which states, “By Myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before Me every knee will bow, by Me every tongue will swear. They will say of Me, ‘In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.'”
The Septuagint, which was what the early church relied upon, translates God’s name (YHWH) as Kyrios, or Lord. When Paul states, Ieosous Christos Kyrios (Jesus Christ is Lord) he is intimating that Jesus Christ is God.
Jesus Is Not God
Which leads to the third deeply flawed teaching that has gained momentum in the last couple of centuries. The doctrine that Jesus is the son of God and not the Son of God. That Jesus was simply a man, but was not divine.
Proponents of this perspective focus on passages of scripture that identify Him as the son of God but not the incarnate God. They assert that God cannot die or forward absurd questions such as, “If Jesus is God, who ran the world when Christ was dead for three days?”, or if Jesus is God, who did He pray to?”, reflecting a trivial mindset and a farcical perspective.
The Bible clearly states that Jesus is God in human form (1 Timothy 3:16, Colossians 2:9).The first chapter of John explicitly connects the dots: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:1). “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” (John 1:14).
Furthermore, in Revelation 1:8, 1:18, and Revelation 22:12-16, both God and Jesus identify themselves as the First and the Last. There cannot be two firsts and two lasts, or there would be a first and the last followed by a second and a second last. The two are one, not merely in essence but in being.
When Christ died on the cross, He did not cease to exist. His body died but He spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40) while His body remained in the tomb. He was reunited with His body when He resurrected on the first day of the week. Additionally, the triune nature of God facilitates Jesus praying to the Father. The Trinity is three persons within one godhead enabling communication between them. People talk to themselves all the time and we are made in God’s image.
There are those who assert that the notion of Jesus being God in the flesh was never articulated until the council of Nicaea in 325 AD. This claim was proven false recently with the discovery of the “Megiddo Mosaic” inscribed in ancient Greek that Jesus is God. It was discovered beneath a prison in Israel and dated to 230 AD. One of the inscriptions reads, “The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.” The ramifications of this discovery pulls the rug out from under the arguments promoting a Nicaean construct to Christ’s divinity and confirms what the Bible has proclaimed all along. That Jesus is God.
Scripture is spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14) and the three beliefs examined in this article are a case in point. Without the Holy Spirit, religion is nothing more than human attempts to explain things about God that are unknowable to the natural man. Paul warns in 1 Timothy 4:2, “such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” They are falsehoods. They are doctrines of demons, and are a departure from the truth of the gospel.
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