Shocking? Yes, it is! Millions suppose Christ came to “save the world.” They believe He came to die for the sins of mankind, yet do not know what sin is. Millions think He came to establish the Christian religion. Almost no one knows why Christ really came to this earth, even though Christ plainly says so! He came to qualify as the King of kings and Lord of lords; to disqualify the present evil world ruler, Satan; to preach the good news of His coming world-ruling government; to call and train His disciples to proclaim that message; to build His church, or His group of “called-out” ones; to commission His church to perform the work of preaching the gospel and caring for the flock; to qualify to become our High Priest; to die for the sins of mankind; to be raised from the dead three days and three nights later; to ascend to His Father in heaven, where He awaits the time of His return as conquering King.
“Peace on earth—good will toward men.” How many times have you heard it? At Christmas, millions of church-going, professing Christian people attend church services, concerts, performances of Handel’s stirring “Messiah.” Millions decorate their homes, their lawns, or even their rooftops with scenes of the Christ child in a manger, with wise men, shepherds, Mary, and the angels.
They suppose they are doing this in honor of Christ’s birthday, which they erroneously believe was on December 25. History proves Christ was born in the autumn, very likely on the First Day of the Feast of Tabernacles, not in the middle of winter.
God’s Word shows Christ was “tabernacling” (dwelling only temporarily) in human flesh (John 1:14); that He came to this earth for many important purposes.
What were the real reasons for the very Person of the Godhead Who said, “Let there be light,” and “Let Us make man in Our image,” to become human flesh? Study carefully the entire first chapter of the Gospel according to John for proof of Christ’s pre-human state.
Did Jesus Christ come to give us a new and different religion? Did He come to bring peace? Did He come to save the world? Did He come to revive the synagogue? Did He come to heal everyone He could, cast out every demon He encountered, teach every person He met, and convert as many as possible?
No, believe it or not, Jesus Christ did not come to save the world—then! Had Jesus Christ decided to “save” the world, He would have done it. Instead, He told His disciples: “Think NOT that I am come to send peace on earth; I came NOT to send peace, but a sword (a symbol of violent death; symbol of war!)
“For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
“And a man’s foes shall be those of his own household” (Matthew 10:34 – 36).
Are you mature enough; is your mind open and inquiring enough to really think about that scriptural passage? Do you believe it? Christ said it. He meant it. He did not come to bring peace during His physical lifetime of “tabernacling” in human flesh.
But what of the oft-repeated phrase, “peace on earth?” It is a blatant mistranslation in the King James Bible of 1611. Most marginal references clear it up: the Oxford KJV margin says, “Or, on earth peace among men of good will, or, on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased” (Luke 2:14).
Christ Himself tells you He did not come to bring peace on this earth. Eventually He will, but that time is in the future.
This is not God’s World
Many people hope for a time of great ecumenism, a time when all men of good will, working together, can bring about a vast Christian revival which will influence governments, and bring the world peace at last.
The Bible prophesies no such thing.
Instead, God’s Word says that Satan the devil has deceived the institutions of this world (Revelation 12:9); that he is the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), and the present “god of this world” (II Corinthians 4:4). As such, Satan is the architect of this world’s institutions, its governments, its societies, and its religions.
The world is in total spiritual darkness, deceived by Satan. Jesus Christ did not attempt to penetrate the veil of darkness and deception that clouded most men’s minds.
Christ’s disciples, wondering why Jesus spoke in puzzles and riddles to his audiences, asked Him why He did this. Millions have supposed Christ’s parables were to make the meaning plain by giving His audiences cozy little stories to illustrate His point.
But Christ told them: “It is given unto you (His disciples) to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given…therefore I speak unto them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
“And in them is fulfilled the prophesy of Esaias (Isaiah), which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive.
“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 3:19-16).
Do you understand what Jesus plainly said?
Christ was telling them He was making a conscious decision to speak in puzzling terms, lest those people should understand, and become converted! He quoted Isaiah’s prophecy which said the masses would have become deceived, that their ears would hear words, but not understand the deep, spiritual intent; that they had closed their eyes to God’s truth!
Not only did Jesus say He had come to a world of spiritual darkness and deception, He plainly said He was not sent to the whole world then, only to Israel!
Read in your own Bible. Jesus was approached by a Gentile woman, a Canaanite, who desperately begged Him to heal her daughter, to cast out a demon. But Jesus did not so much as answer this poor woman! He “answered her not a word” (Matthew 15:23).
Are you prepared to believe what your own Bible says, instead of what mainstream evangelicals have always supposed or what you have always assumed?
What your Bible tells you is that if the Canaanitish woman had not shown an example of unusual tenacity, Jesus Christ would have turned a deaf ear to her appeals; He would have gone His way, and paid no attention whatsoever to her desperate cry for relief for her daughter!
Even the disciples wanted to be rid of her. “And His disciples besought Him, saying, ‘Send her away; for she crieth after us.’
“But He answered and said, ‘I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.’
“Then came she and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’
But He answered and said, ‘It is not meet (proper, fitting) to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs’” (Matthew 15:23-26).
At this point, had the Savior of all mankind said such a thing today, in our “politically correct” society, this dark, swarthy woman would have fiercely bridled; “What!? Your referring to me and my kind as DOGS? What are you, a racist, white male, homophobe, bigoted, religious fanatic?”
Sure she would.
Think about it.
His analogy said that parents of children who were sitting at the dining table would hardly take food from their plates, and toss it to their pets! The meaning was clear. He was only sent to the “lost sheep of the House of Israel,” and it was not yet time for God’s grace to be extended to the Gentiles.
But the Canaanitish woman did not react the way millions of her female countrywomen might react today.
Instead, she persevered, “Truth, Lord (Notice the agreement! Notice the respect!), yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.”
“Then Jesus answered and said, unto her, ‘O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto you even as you will.’ And her daughter was made whole from that very hour” (Matthew 15:27, 28).
God’s Word proves that Jesus Christ did not come to save the world then! Yet, millions assume He made every effort to heal, rescue, save, convert every human being He came across. They think, quite falsely, that He was engaged in a desperate saving mission, preaching, teaching, appealing, healing—trying to get the people saved!
They only think so because they are complete biblical illiterates.
Christ Did Not Come to Do Away With God’s Law
Millions have supposed Christ came to do away with the law! They imagine, because of the deceptive propaganda of liberal churchmen over the centuries, that Christ set Himself against what they suppose were the harsh, unyielding, “legalistic,” old laws of the “Father God of the Old Testament,” that He came to abrogate that old law, the Ten Commandments.
They think He came to give us some “new” commandment having to do with “love.” In the minds of millions, this “love” each of us is to have toward our fellow man is all that is necessary once we “receive Jesus,” profess His name, and “believe” on Him.
Today, millions “believe on Jesus,” but they do not BELIEVE Him!
They do not believe what He said!
He said: “Think NOT that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). Christ lifted the law to a spiritual plane; applied God’s Ten Commandments in a spiritual sense, showing that the law was broken even by thoughts of the human heart, and not by the breaking of the letter of the law only.
Of course, millions of people, including countless thousands of churchmen, have no special quarrel with nine of the Ten Commandments. Millions believe it is well and good to honor one’s parents; to avoid stealing, or murder, or lying. But the Fourth Commandment?
Christ spoke continually about God’s Ten Commandments. He upheld the law against murder and hatred (Matthew 5:21); said it was a sin, breaking the command against murder, to call a brother by a hateful name (Matthew 5:23), said the commandment against adultery was intact (Matthew 5:27); observed the Passover (John 2:13, 23; Mark 14:1-16); observed the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day of the Feast (John 7:10-14; 7:37).
Paul wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good,” and concluded: “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:12, 25).
John wrote, “Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.
“He that saith, ‘I know Him,’ and keepeth not His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (I John 5:2,3).
Jesus Christ said, “the Sabbath was made for man (He did not say, “the Jews”) and not man for the Sabbath:
“Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27, 28). Which day is the “Lord’s Day?” The Sabbath.
Christ said: “Why call ye me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46), and told His disciples: “Not everyone that saith unto me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
No, Christ did NOT come to “do away with the law!” Yet, millions of blinded, deceived, biblical illiterates suppose He did!
Christ Did Not Come To Establish A New Religion
Millions suppose Christ came to do away with all things “Jewish,” and to establish a new, and very different, religion—that of “Christianity.”
But, as we just saw above, Christ continually upheld, by His teaching and by His example, the law of God! And why not? For, after all, He WAS the Divine Agent of the Sovereign God in heaven Who gave Moses the law!
Read it, “In the beginning was the Word (Greek: Logos, or “Spokesman”) and the Word was with God (Greek: Theos, equivalent to the Hebrew Elohim, which is a plural word), and the Word was God.
“The same was in the beginning with God.
“All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made…He was in the world and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.
“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
“But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name…and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-14).
Any fifth-grade child can understand this plain statement of Scripture! The One Whom we know as Jesus Christ WAS the One Who said, “Let there be light”; Who sent Moses into Egypt; Who wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger; Who called Abraham; Who dealt with the patriarchs and prophets.
Now, think what this truth does to the false theology of millions who think Christ came to “do away” with the law and the “Old Testament!”
Notice further: “God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
“Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:1,2).
Jesus Christ IS THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Not that there is no reference to both Father and Son in the Old Testament, for there is. However, your Bible plainly tells you that Jesus Christ of the New Testament is the Member of the Divine Family of the Old Testament Who DID THE CREATING!
Did Christ, as millions suppose, change God’s truth, abrogate the Divine law, do away with any requirement to obey God?
“For I am the ETERNAL (Jehovah), I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” God said.
Jesus said, “Ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, and ye yourselves cast out” to the Pharisees. How? Did people “get saved” under Moses back then? But Moses was not even born when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived.
Did God somehow change the manner in which men may please Him, serve Him, believe Him, obey Him? He says not. “ Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
No, Christ did not come to establish some “new religion”. He chided the Pharisees for their burdensome human traditions which they had added to the laws of God, while upholding the law. He said: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?…Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
“This people draweth night unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
“But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:2-9).
Jesus said it is possible to worship Him, to laud Him, to praise Him, to sing about Him, to “believe on Him,” to adore Him, to love Him, and to feel all kinds of worshipful emotions about Him, and to do it ALL IN VAIN!
How?
By “appropriating” Christ, by claiming to “believe on Him,” and by “accepting” Him as Savior, but REFUSING TO OBEY Him! Millions worship their fantastic concepts of Christ, but reject the Ten Commandments of God (which that same Christ wrote with His own finger). Claiming they are “done away.”
Thus, they have substituted the hundreds of years of churchianity, of Catholic and Protestant tradition, for the truth of God from His Word.
