tulsa 2011
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- Dec 18, 2010
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The Priesthood of the Believer and the Remnant In the Wilderness
Under the leadership of W.A. Crisswell, at the 1988 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in
San Antonio, a resolution was passed critical of the Baptist belief in the "priesthood of the believer" and promoted the authority of the Baptist clergy over the doctrines of the church members. Crisswell told a group of pastors that "the man of God who is the pastor of the church is the ruler."
The priesthood of the believer means that the believer has the authority from God to bring Christian doctrines and morality to the world - and also to be his own "priest" in interpreting the word of God. To be your own "priest" or preacher you must first know the truth from Scripture and have a strong love for it. Otherwise, the believer as "priest" simply accepts for himself some set of false doctrines and tries to make others believe the false doctrines.
Since Crisswell was a dispensationalist and dispensationalism is taught and maintained within a church system in which the preacher is the authority and rules over the beliefs of the members, he opposed the doctrine. The older pre-dispensationalist Southern Baptist priesthood of the believer does not work within the dispensationalist church system which rules over the beliefs of the members to make sure they follow dispensationalist doctrines.
The old Southern Baptist doctrine of the priesthood of the believer does try to correct to some extent the Calvinist church as a man made institution that rules over the doctrines and behavior of the members - which Theodore Beza established from Roman Catholicism.
William Tyndale in his 1526 New Testament translated ekklesia consistently as congregation, except for Acts 14: 13 and Acts 19: 37 where he used churche, meaning a pagan place of worship.
Any doctrine is established by the original meaning of the Hebrew or Greek words used to express that doctrine. A translation into English should not change that doctrine. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance defines ekklesia, number 1577, as "a calling out, i.e. (to) a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation..."
The old English word circe, chirche, kirk or churche is said to have meant the house of a lord, a place of pagan worship, or circe, the Greek goddess. But circe, or churche was redefined by the clergy. Neither churche as a house of a pagan lord or circe as the Greek goddess have the same meaning as the Greek word ekklesia.
Why was the church redefined, and what did it come to mean?
"The word "church" was used by Theodore Beza in 1556, a Protestant, who followed John Calvin at Geneva, Switzerland. As a Presbyterian, Beza believed in the idea of a catholic church and its hierarchical form of government and therefore chose to support this false concept by using the word "church" instead of "assembly." The reason is obvious in that the use of the word "congregation" or "assembly" would not support his church's hierarchical form of church government. William Whittingham's Testament of 1557 followed Beza's usage of "church" and was actually the first edition of the Geneva Bible and was a revision of the Tyndale New Testament."...................<wbr>..............................<wbr>..............................<wbr>..............................<wbr>..............................<wbr>.The King James Version followed the Geneva Bible in translating ekklesia as church.
I Peter 5: 2-3 says "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3. Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock."
I Peter 5:2-3 says that what we call priests and preachers are to feed God's people, but they are not to constrain the people of God, are not to make money from feeding the people of God, and are not to be lords over them. This identifies how the priests and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church redefined the ekklesia (Greek), the Ecclesia (Latin) and the churche (early English) so that the priests and religious hierarchy could rule over the people. The ekklesia (Greek) is just a meeting,assembly,gathering or congregation of God's people, his elect plus some who are beginning to become interested. The ekklesia is not a proper noun; it is a common noun. The Ecclesia and the Churche were made into proper nouns,and into a man-made organization to be ruled by the clergy class.
When Theodore Beza, an early Calvinist, supported the burning of the anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus (died 1553), he showed his view that the Churche should be an organization which rules over men. Beza, contrary to I Peter 5: 2-3 had the Calvinist Churche rule by constraint and to lord it over the people.
Christ said he came to bring life and it more abundantly. John 10: 10. And when in Luke 9: 54-46 James and John wanted Christ to call down fire from heaven to kill people in a village, Christ "...rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. "
Theodore Beza did not have the Holy Spirit because in wanting to burn Servetus to death he was acting contrary to the spirit of the Gospel given by Christ. Yet, Beza established for the Reformation the idea that the church should be an institution to rule over those claiming to be Christians. This is not to say that Calvinism is worse as a tradition of men than present day dispensationalism, which itself has fully continued the use of the church, the clergy and the seminary as a means of control of the doctrine of the people, which is dispensationalism.
End time Bible prophecy in Revelation 18: 23 says that in Babylon "...the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee..."
Then Revelation 18: 2, 4 says "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird....."Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;"
Babylon is a metaphor here, the same as Babylon in Jerermiah 50 and 51 is a metaphor. The metaphor is a take off from the 70 year captivity of Old Covenant Israel in Babylon. Babylon in Revelation 18: 2,4, 23, or Mystery Babylon the Great, in Revelation 17: 5 is
a metaphoric representation of apostate religion in captivity to religion, as man leaning to his own understanding. Since Revelation 17 and 18 are prophecies for religion in the New Covenant era, it is Christianity that is in captivity to its man made doctrines, different from scripture in several ways.
After those who belong to God come out of Babylon, the church promoting religion as the doctrines of men, where do they go?
The answer is again a metaphor - in Revelation 12: 14-17
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
16. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
The woman who is given two wings of a great eagle to fly into the wilderness is not literal in any way. She is not a literal woman from the Bible. In verse 17 the remnant is said to be her seed. The remnant is the seed of God - all of the elect are the seed of God and of Abraham (Galatians 3: 29).
The remnant, which is the remnant of Israel, but Israel reborn in Christ, is out in the metaphoric wilderness. Remember John the Baptist, in Matthew 3: 3, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness? That was more of a literal wilderness. The remnant, who in Revelation 12: 17 have the testimony of Jesus Christ, are in a metaphoric wilderness. They are out of the church system, out from the control of its clergy, on their own. But they have the testimony of Jesus Christ. They are their own "priests."
Remember that Zephaniah 3: 13 says of the remnant of Israel that "The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth." Likewise Revelation 14:5 says of the 144,000 "...in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God." But the false prophets, who are represented in Revelation 12:15 as speaking the flood of lies (the serpent inspires the false prophets to speak the flood of lies), work by deception as Christ tells us in Matthew 24: 11, that the many false prophets shall deceive many.
Hebrews 13: 12-14 says "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come."
"Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp..." After the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 has gone on for a time, those who belong to God are called out of the church which is ruling over its members in order to keep them in false doctrines.
The remnant goes to Christ who is spiritually and metaphorically out in the wilderness, without the camp, the church, and there they are their own "priests," but they have no guile, which is deception, and have the testimony of Christ. It can be lonely in the wilderness but Christ is nearby.
Tyndale Bible of 1526 For II Thessalonians 2: 3-7
"Let no man deceive you by any means, for the Lord cometh not, except there come a departing first, and that that sinful man be opened, the son of perdition which is an adversary, and is exalted above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he shall sit in the temple of God, and shew himself as God. Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth: even that he might be uttered at his time. For already the mystery of iniquity worketh. Only he that holdeth, let him now hold, until he be taken out of the way," II Thessalonians 2: 3-7
But the King James Version has "And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way."
The key difference between the King James and the Tyndale translation is the English word "holdeth," in Tyndale's Bible, from katecho, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance Number 2722, "to hold down, withhold..." Letteth in the King James can mean to restrain. But Tyndale translates it as "holdeth," meaning to lock in place that takeover of the temple of God in the believer by the sinful man.
If the man of sin is taken to be "the" anti-Christ, we should interpret this by what John says in I John 2:18, and I John 4: 3. In I John 2: 18 John says "even now are here many anti-Christs," and in I John 4: 3 he says "there is that spirit of anti-Christ." John does not say there is to be one man as "the" anti-Christ, but that there were already anti-Christs around in his lifetime and that this is the spirit of anti-Christ. Tyndale's translation, saying that the man of sin holdeth, or holds fast, in his sitting in the temple of God, is consistent with John's texts, that there were already anti-Christs in his time, and that anti-Christ is the spirit of anti-Christ. The King James translation saying in II Thessalonians 2: 7 that "he who now lettteth will let, until he be taken out of the way" is not consistent with John's texts because it implies that he man of sin appears and sits in the temple of God after a restrainer is taken out of the way. Tyndale says the man of sin holds fast in the temple of God until he is taken out of the way.
Paul is using "sitteth in the temple of God" metaphorically in II Thessalonians 2: 4. In I Corinthians 3: 2: 16-17 that Christians are now the temple of God, and in I Corinthians 6: 19 he says "know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." The temple of God in II Thessalonians 2: 4 is the believer himself, so long as he is in Christ and Christ in him.
And the Tyndale translation of ketecho as to hold down or lock in place the work of the man of sin who comes to occupy the inner lives of the Christians is very important. This is because the King James Version implies that the falling away and the occupation of the believers by the "man" of sin, who is not one man, but a spirit, is not to happen until the restrainer is taken away sometime in the future. Tyndale's translation says the man of sin's work is locked in place until he is taken out of the way.
Under the leadership of W.A. Crisswell, at the 1988 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in
San Antonio, a resolution was passed critical of the Baptist belief in the "priesthood of the believer" and promoted the authority of the Baptist clergy over the doctrines of the church members. Crisswell told a group of pastors that "the man of God who is the pastor of the church is the ruler."
The priesthood of the believer means that the believer has the authority from God to bring Christian doctrines and morality to the world - and also to be his own "priest" in interpreting the word of God. To be your own "priest" or preacher you must first know the truth from Scripture and have a strong love for it. Otherwise, the believer as "priest" simply accepts for himself some set of false doctrines and tries to make others believe the false doctrines.
Since Crisswell was a dispensationalist and dispensationalism is taught and maintained within a church system in which the preacher is the authority and rules over the beliefs of the members, he opposed the doctrine. The older pre-dispensationalist Southern Baptist priesthood of the believer does not work within the dispensationalist church system which rules over the beliefs of the members to make sure they follow dispensationalist doctrines.
The old Southern Baptist doctrine of the priesthood of the believer does try to correct to some extent the Calvinist church as a man made institution that rules over the doctrines and behavior of the members - which Theodore Beza established from Roman Catholicism.
William Tyndale in his 1526 New Testament translated ekklesia consistently as congregation, except for Acts 14: 13 and Acts 19: 37 where he used churche, meaning a pagan place of worship.
Any doctrine is established by the original meaning of the Hebrew or Greek words used to express that doctrine. A translation into English should not change that doctrine. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance defines ekklesia, number 1577, as "a calling out, i.e. (to) a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation..."
The old English word circe, chirche, kirk or churche is said to have meant the house of a lord, a place of pagan worship, or circe, the Greek goddess. But circe, or churche was redefined by the clergy. Neither churche as a house of a pagan lord or circe as the Greek goddess have the same meaning as the Greek word ekklesia.
Why was the church redefined, and what did it come to mean?
"The word "church" was used by Theodore Beza in 1556, a Protestant, who followed John Calvin at Geneva, Switzerland. As a Presbyterian, Beza believed in the idea of a catholic church and its hierarchical form of government and therefore chose to support this false concept by using the word "church" instead of "assembly." The reason is obvious in that the use of the word "congregation" or "assembly" would not support his church's hierarchical form of church government. William Whittingham's Testament of 1557 followed Beza's usage of "church" and was actually the first edition of the Geneva Bible and was a revision of the Tyndale New Testament."...................<wbr>..............................<wbr>..............................<wbr>..............................<wbr>..............................<wbr>.The King James Version followed the Geneva Bible in translating ekklesia as church.
I Peter 5: 2-3 says "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3. Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock."
I Peter 5:2-3 says that what we call priests and preachers are to feed God's people, but they are not to constrain the people of God, are not to make money from feeding the people of God, and are not to be lords over them. This identifies how the priests and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church redefined the ekklesia (Greek), the Ecclesia (Latin) and the churche (early English) so that the priests and religious hierarchy could rule over the people. The ekklesia (Greek) is just a meeting,assembly,gathering or congregation of God's people, his elect plus some who are beginning to become interested. The ekklesia is not a proper noun; it is a common noun. The Ecclesia and the Churche were made into proper nouns,and into a man-made organization to be ruled by the clergy class.
When Theodore Beza, an early Calvinist, supported the burning of the anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus (died 1553), he showed his view that the Churche should be an organization which rules over men. Beza, contrary to I Peter 5: 2-3 had the Calvinist Churche rule by constraint and to lord it over the people.
Christ said he came to bring life and it more abundantly. John 10: 10. And when in Luke 9: 54-46 James and John wanted Christ to call down fire from heaven to kill people in a village, Christ "...rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. "
Theodore Beza did not have the Holy Spirit because in wanting to burn Servetus to death he was acting contrary to the spirit of the Gospel given by Christ. Yet, Beza established for the Reformation the idea that the church should be an institution to rule over those claiming to be Christians. This is not to say that Calvinism is worse as a tradition of men than present day dispensationalism, which itself has fully continued the use of the church, the clergy and the seminary as a means of control of the doctrine of the people, which is dispensationalism.
End time Bible prophecy in Revelation 18: 23 says that in Babylon "...the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee..."
Then Revelation 18: 2, 4 says "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird....."Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;"
Babylon is a metaphor here, the same as Babylon in Jerermiah 50 and 51 is a metaphor. The metaphor is a take off from the 70 year captivity of Old Covenant Israel in Babylon. Babylon in Revelation 18: 2,4, 23, or Mystery Babylon the Great, in Revelation 17: 5 is
a metaphoric representation of apostate religion in captivity to religion, as man leaning to his own understanding. Since Revelation 17 and 18 are prophecies for religion in the New Covenant era, it is Christianity that is in captivity to its man made doctrines, different from scripture in several ways.
After those who belong to God come out of Babylon, the church promoting religion as the doctrines of men, where do they go?
The answer is again a metaphor - in Revelation 12: 14-17
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
16. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
The woman who is given two wings of a great eagle to fly into the wilderness is not literal in any way. She is not a literal woman from the Bible. In verse 17 the remnant is said to be her seed. The remnant is the seed of God - all of the elect are the seed of God and of Abraham (Galatians 3: 29).
The remnant, which is the remnant of Israel, but Israel reborn in Christ, is out in the metaphoric wilderness. Remember John the Baptist, in Matthew 3: 3, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness? That was more of a literal wilderness. The remnant, who in Revelation 12: 17 have the testimony of Jesus Christ, are in a metaphoric wilderness. They are out of the church system, out from the control of its clergy, on their own. But they have the testimony of Jesus Christ. They are their own "priests."
Remember that Zephaniah 3: 13 says of the remnant of Israel that "The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth." Likewise Revelation 14:5 says of the 144,000 "...in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God." But the false prophets, who are represented in Revelation 12:15 as speaking the flood of lies (the serpent inspires the false prophets to speak the flood of lies), work by deception as Christ tells us in Matthew 24: 11, that the many false prophets shall deceive many.
Hebrews 13: 12-14 says "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come."
"Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp..." After the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 has gone on for a time, those who belong to God are called out of the church which is ruling over its members in order to keep them in false doctrines.
The remnant goes to Christ who is spiritually and metaphorically out in the wilderness, without the camp, the church, and there they are their own "priests," but they have no guile, which is deception, and have the testimony of Christ. It can be lonely in the wilderness but Christ is nearby.
Tyndale Bible of 1526 For II Thessalonians 2: 3-7
"Let no man deceive you by any means, for the Lord cometh not, except there come a departing first, and that that sinful man be opened, the son of perdition which is an adversary, and is exalted above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he shall sit in the temple of God, and shew himself as God. Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth: even that he might be uttered at his time. For already the mystery of iniquity worketh. Only he that holdeth, let him now hold, until he be taken out of the way," II Thessalonians 2: 3-7
But the King James Version has "And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way."
The key difference between the King James and the Tyndale translation is the English word "holdeth," in Tyndale's Bible, from katecho, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance Number 2722, "to hold down, withhold..." Letteth in the King James can mean to restrain. But Tyndale translates it as "holdeth," meaning to lock in place that takeover of the temple of God in the believer by the sinful man.
If the man of sin is taken to be "the" anti-Christ, we should interpret this by what John says in I John 2:18, and I John 4: 3. In I John 2: 18 John says "even now are here many anti-Christs," and in I John 4: 3 he says "there is that spirit of anti-Christ." John does not say there is to be one man as "the" anti-Christ, but that there were already anti-Christs around in his lifetime and that this is the spirit of anti-Christ. Tyndale's translation, saying that the man of sin holdeth, or holds fast, in his sitting in the temple of God, is consistent with John's texts, that there were already anti-Christs in his time, and that anti-Christ is the spirit of anti-Christ. The King James translation saying in II Thessalonians 2: 7 that "he who now lettteth will let, until he be taken out of the way" is not consistent with John's texts because it implies that he man of sin appears and sits in the temple of God after a restrainer is taken out of the way. Tyndale says the man of sin holds fast in the temple of God until he is taken out of the way.
Paul is using "sitteth in the temple of God" metaphorically in II Thessalonians 2: 4. In I Corinthians 3: 2: 16-17 that Christians are now the temple of God, and in I Corinthians 6: 19 he says "know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." The temple of God in II Thessalonians 2: 4 is the believer himself, so long as he is in Christ and Christ in him.
And the Tyndale translation of ketecho as to hold down or lock in place the work of the man of sin who comes to occupy the inner lives of the Christians is very important. This is because the King James Version implies that the falling away and the occupation of the believers by the "man" of sin, who is not one man, but a spirit, is not to happen until the restrainer is taken away sometime in the future. Tyndale's translation says the man of sin's work is locked in place until he is taken out of the way.
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