Wednesday, March 18, 2020

CIRA International may have found the culprit; Paul decides how Christians are saved?

In answer to the video "Islamic Original Sin Dilemma: Introduction: Are Muslims Born Sinless?"

So where does this strange idea of justification by faith alone comes from. As usual when discussing the religion of those claiming to be Jesus' followers and that are today called "Christians", one doesnt need to look further that in Paul's writings.

Paul was spending all day in his writings trying to gain credibility as seen in the Epistles, saying he was equal to, if not greater, than the Apostles of Jesus and making statements such as even if angels were to come down, and they said differently than what he was preaching, not the believe the angel. That is in stark contrast with the Paul described in Acts, supposedly written by his disciple Luke, where he is more of a team player, subordinated to the early apostles of Jesus.
And yet the man never once met Jesus in his life, and here he was coming to those that knew and followed him, telling them they were all wrong the whole time. He never even quotes him once in any of his writings, doesnt show any knowledge about the historical Jesus at all. He was all for the assimilation of the Gentiles into the Judaic faith, and the Jews compromising on their faith as opposed to the other way around.

Thus, his focus on grace as opposed to law.

He asserts his authority before the Greek people, but never to the community in Jerusalem, and more particularly James, Jesus' brother. James' approval was necessary for anyone claiming to preach Jesus' teachings as explicitly stated in the church-rejected Pseudo-Clementine chapter 4 and implicitly alluded to by Paul in 2Cor3:1-6,1 Cor9:2,Gal1:20-24. He sharply disagrees with James and what Jesus taught when he preached salvation through faith alone Rom3:30.

James, like all prophets of the scriptures, repeated the basic principle that faith and deeds go hand in hand and that one without the other is useless James2:19-22. So important are the good deeds for one's salvation in the Hereafter that the prophets prayed God to remember these deeds for the final judgement Neh13:14.

His authority was thus constantly challenged, not only by Christians but by Jews whom he went seeking in their synagogues. In Acts21, Paul is asked to partake in the Nazirite purification sacrifice to prove he was still "kosher", given his notoriously deceptive modus operandi (ie to the Jew a Jew, to the gentile a gentile etc). This shows something important, Jesus' earliest followers were still practicing sacrifices after Jesus' death and never believed Jesus abolished the mosaic law, much less the sacrificial system. Why would he, when the HB to which he abided to the letter, explicitly says that all the mosaic law including animal sacrifices will be reinstated once the 3rd temple is built.

As to the Christians that challenged him, he accused them, more particularly Jesus' disciples and apostles of being false and deceitful 2Cor11:13-15, sarcastically said they "seemed to be pillars" of the church Gal2:9, even cursed them Gal5:12. It took 3 angelic apearances to confirm and justify Paul's abrogation of these and other laws to the early disciples. Peter reconsidered his firm stance on abiding by the law, convinced that abrogating dietary laws like not eating pork would result in Romans being saved from Hell. If Jesus' message was what Paul said it was the entire time, why did it take a vision, reinforced repeatedly, for Peter to do something that Jesus had already instructed him to do? Sometimes Christians try finding justification for Paul's dietary reforms in Jesus' saying
Mk7:14-19"There is nothing that goes into a person from the outside which can make him ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that makes him unclean...Nothing that goes into a person from outside can really make him unclean, because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and then goes on out of the body".
If all food is good for consumption regardless of pre meal rituals because it merely enters stomach and not the heart then why are James and Paul himself so concerned about food offered to idols Acts15,1Cor10? Jesus here wasnt denying the law, rather infusing it with a much needed spiritual dimension, as he applied himself to do all throughout his career. Similarily, the sabbath, whose transgression is punishable by death according to the Law upheld by Jesus, became a matter of free choice with no consequence Col2:16-17,Rom14:4 thus easing the way further for any potential converts.

Paul, who was at most a hellenezied Jew, was explaining Jesus teachings in ways that were unheard of by Jesus' disciples. Paul's letters were written about AD 50-60, while the Gospels were not written until 60-90 meaning Paul's theories were already established before the unknown writers of the gospels started their works and earlier christian thought was quickly branded heretical.

After Jesus' death, Paul's main problem was to convince his Jewish audience that the messiah's death, without accomplishing any of the messianic criteria, instead of being a failure was actually a necessity. He did so by introducing the doctrine of total depravity, making all humans de facto sinners and therefore in need of an atoning sacrifice Rom7:14-25,Rom3:10-11,5:13,8:7-8,1Cor2:14,Eph2:1-3,Titus3:3.

His addressees however already believed in the resurrection of the dead, in a just God who forgave the sins of a penitent heart. Nothing was missing in their system that Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection could fix. Paul's redeeming hero was a redundancy to them, so he was obviously met with fierce resistence wherever he preached his unscriptural ideas. This led him to eventually turn to the gentiles among whom he found a much more favorable audience.

No comments:

Post a Comment