Romans 9: Question of Homosexuality

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS [9]

Analytical Commentary on Romans
QUESTION OF HOMOSEXUALITY

The Audio MP3 of this lecture is available via this link: http://www.bripodcasts.com/Romans/Lecture9.MP3

Copyright © BRI 2016 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"The great Rabbi Gamaliel had among his disciples one who, according to a passage in the Talmud, gave his master a good deal of trouble, manifesting 'impudence in matters of learning.' But his name is not given; he is remembered simply as 'that pupil'" (F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, 1958, 81. See also J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, 1944, 310f; Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 30b).

The historian Tacitus describes the city of Rome as "the common sewer into which everything infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world" (Tacitus, Annals XV, 44).

"I hope everyone will pay keen attention to the moral life of earlier times, to the personalities and principles of the men responsible at home and in the field for the foundation and growth of the empire, and will appreciate the subsequent decline in discipline and in moral standards... down to the present day [Livy died 17 CE]. For we have now reached a point where your degeneracy is intolerable" (Livy [Titus Livius])

I would doubt very much that most modern church pew warmers who use Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians (and especially the contents of the latter section of the first chapter) to crusade against the democratic rights of people who proclaim themselves to be other than heterosexual, do so in gross ignorance of the history of the ancient world. This becomes an apparent problem when they forcibly articulate (better, dictate) how others ought to behave sexually (that is, according to their own particular view of church-oriented morality). Had they examined the history of human sexuality in the ancient world (even that of a fairly recent 2000 years past) they would realise, very possibly, that there were many writers who would have agreed (and did agree) with the content of the first chapter of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians. We have noted already what Livy exclaimed. "We have now reached a point where your degeneracy is intolerable."

That Rome was littered with loveless sexual degeneracy cannot be argued against, any more than we can turn our eyes from reports of the "vulgar ostentation and [widespread] sexual promiscuity [especially] of the wealthy class" (James Neill, The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies, 2008, 206) reflected in the sophisticated satire Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter. This document contains a description of rampant sexual excess that was so deplored by "Juvenal, Livy and Tacitus" (ibid). In fact, when one reads their accounts, and the literature of that excessively immoral and degenerate period, they would have been in total agreement with Paul in his lucid expose of idolatrous behaviour scripted so clearly and candidly in Romans 1.

But Juvenal, Livy, Tacitus and even Martial did not include homosexual orientation in their otherwise mass of moral condemnation. And, as we shall see, neither did Paul. I may well be a lone dove , for lack of a better term , in the exercise of this perspective, but unless or until my arguments are found to be biblically unsound and unwarranted then I will stick by that which the Ruach HaKodesh has revealed to my understanding over the past 50+ years of studious research.

But before we continue into this subject lets gain an insight into the text itself, the consensus interpretation/opinion of which has caused such oppressive heartache, emotional and psychological distress, and monumental tragedy over the last few centuries.

THE TEXT
"What is revealed is God"™s anger from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who in their wickedness keep suppressing the truth; because what is known about God is plain to them, since God has made it plain to them. For ever since the creation of the universe his invisible qualities , both his eternal power and his divine nature , have been clearly seen, because they can be understood from what he has made. Therefore, they have no excuse; because, although they know who God is, they do not glorify him as God or thank him. On the contrary, they have become futile in their thinking, in their reasoning; and their undiscerning, stupid atheistic hearts have become darkened. Asserting themselves to be wise, they have become fools! In fact, they have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for mere images, like a mortal human being, or like birds, animals or reptiles! This is why God has given them over to the vileness of their hearts"™ cravings, to bestial profligacy [Kenneth Wuest translation], which had for its purpose the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves; who were of such a character that they have exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and rendered religious service to the creation, rather than the Creator , praised be he for the aeons. Amen. This is why God has given them up to degrading passions, to disgraceful sexual appetites; so that their females [freely] exchange natural sexual relations for that which is beside nature; and likewise the males, giving up natural relations with the opposite sex, burned out with passion for one another, males committing shameful obscene acts with other males and receiving in their own bodies and personalities the penalty of that retribution which was a necessity in the nature of the case because of these deviations from the norm , which was their fitting retribution. In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to a disapproved mental state, to a mind void of moral discernment; so that they do improper things" (Romans 1.18-28 Tentative BRI/IMCF Version).

"Improper things." Was Paul specifically thinking of their sexual expression? He may well have been, and those deviations may well have involved issues of a sadomasochistic nature pertaining to extreme torturous bondage and erotic disciplinary sadism. Or, he may not have had such things in mind. For, doesn't Paul go on to delineate and to speak of these "improper things"? Why stop at Rom 1.28? Why not continue? What are some of these "improper things" to which Paul alludes?

"They are filled with every kind of injustice, evil, avarice and vice; stuffed with envy, murder, quarrelling, dishonesty and ill-will; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God; they are insolent, arrogant and boastful; they plan evil schemes; they disobey parental authority and disappoint their expectations of them; they are brainless, faithless, heartless without natural affection and ruthless. They KNOW well enough God"™s righteous decree that people who do such things [N.B., those things Paul has just enumerated] deserve to die; YET not only do they keep doing them habitually, but they applaud and take immense pleasure in others who do the same" (Romans 1.18-32 Tentative BRI/IMCF Version).

You can see now just how perverse has been traditional homophobic emphasis and modern disturbed translation of the sacred text. Honestly! If you personally know a homosexual or lesbian, do these people (whether friends, neighbours, business associates or family members) display these wretched negative characteristics? I would suggest, at all costs, probably not! And this is because Paul is decidedly not engaged in describing today's gay people, but rather a select cabal of filthy, dirty, rotten, subversive, hate-filled, atheistic-at-heart, religious demoniac deviates who purposely rejected the truth of God in exchange for the teachings of the mystery cults of that same period , the idolatrous foundation rooted in the belief that WE of ourselves are the pinnacle of Godhead and that as such WE can create in ourselves the Christification of the Logos within, without and apart from the shed blood of Yeshua and indwelling of the Ruach HaKodesh!

In effect, we are talking about the Christification of the human creature in his final progressive evolutionary pursuit of "perfection" , without God's SPIRITUAL enabling. THIS is what the Mediterranean Mystery Cults of the mid-to-late Second Temple period were all about. Essentially: How to become PERFECT without God. And it was sheer narcissism.

SLAVERY , THE GREATEST EVIL THAT EVER EXISTED , AND GOD'S ACCOMMODATION TO HUMANKIND
I wish to encourage all my students in Australia and around the globe, to broaden both their perspectives and perceptions relating to their accumulating knowledge of the biblical revelation. Now I am about to cover some things which I am fully cognisant will be creating more than a little unease with a few of my students. I am trusting, however, that the vast overwhelming majority of our Messianic believers will be able to acknowledge and appreciate, as a correct understanding and application, THAT which is plainly found in what is called "The Word of God."

We so often hear from the Christian church that there is a great need for believers to accommodate to the will of the living God. And, indeed, we should all be attempting to align ourselves to God's expectations of us as human beings. But, when we open the first pages of the Torah , in the first book or scroll of the Torah, Genesis , we find that more often than not it is God Himself who is accommodating to human beings.

This is so often overlooked by believers, both Messianic and traditionally Christian, and it needs to be stressed that God is an accommodating God, and that this is nothing more than a reflection of His innate character. God IS love. God is infinite love. And that infinite love is unconditional. That is what the world needs to hear more about at this time.

A prime example of God's accommodation to humankind is that of our Father Abraham. Certainly God accommodated to the patriarch, and in quite a surprising way! Turn to Genesis 12.

"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, unto a land that I will show you; and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you. And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Gen 12.1-3).

Quite a covenant (contract)! If Abraham complied with the commandment of God in its three sections, wonderful blessings would be his! And what were those three requirements of God concerning our Father Abraham?

Firstly, he had to leave his country which was in the region of Chaldea.

Secondly, he had to depart from his relatives.

Thirdly, he had to renounce his father's house, and all for which it stood.

Comments Rashi , the great Jewish rabbinical scholar and commentator , on this section of Abraham's call, "In this land of idol worship thou art not worthy to rear sons to the service of God."

In other words the evil surroundings would contaminate them. The Midrash takes pains to explain that this jettisoning of his past would be for the benefit of all Abraham would meet. "When a flask of balsam is sealed and stored away, its fragrance is not perceptible; but, opened and moved about, its sweet odour is widely diffused." Abraham had "to cut himself adrift from all associations that could possibly hinder his mission" (Pentateuch & Haftorahs, III, Lech Lecha, Chapters XII-XVII, 45).

Abraham is called by Paul "the Father of the faithful" for the period prior to the inauguration of the Mosaic economy. The great Apostle aligns Messianic believers with him. Yet, and here is the point, Abraham was far from obedient to the Lord's command! For, in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 12 it is written, "So Abram departed, as the Lord has spoken to him, and Lot went with him... And Abram took Sarai his wife... and Lot his brother's son."

Not only did Abraham disobey God in regards his nephew Lot, Stephen tells us that when God first called Abraham and told him to depart from his relatives (and thus from his father's idolatrous house) that Terah his father went with his son (Acts 7.2-4).

Not only was this the case, Abraham's life was one huge mistake after another (Gen 12.10-13,17-20; 20.1-14). In an overall sense Abraham was obedient to the heavenly vision. But that obedience was most assuredly an incomplete obedience. Nevertheless, the record states flatly that God did bless Abraham, and in a mighty and wonderful way. It is written, inspired by the Spirit of God, "Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws" (Gen 26.5).

In a word, God was accommodating to Abraham's humanness.

And Lot, who fled with his uncle Abraham from Chaldea, was certainly no paragon of virtue! No, not by any means! A man of immeasurable greed (Gen 13.1-11), involved in the official affairs of the infamous city of Sodom (Gen 19.1), who even offered his two virginal daughters to brutish rapists (both heterosexual and homosexual , an open invitation to all the horrors of pack rape , Gen 19.4-9), and who finally committed incest with the two girls (Gen 19.30-36) , this man is referred to as "RIGHTEOUS Lot" by no less an authority than the Apostle Peter himself! Not only did Peter consider Lot "righteous" but he also called him "just" and "godly" (2 Pet 2.7-9). Almost needless to say, I do not share this view of Lot. I live in the 21st century of our era, and my views do not agreeably coincide with those of Peter who considered this nephew of Abraham to have been "righteous."

But here again, in the case of Lot, we find the doctrine of accommodation. God fully is aware of man's needs, not only physical and material, but emotional and psychological. God accommodates to man. Perhaps this is why even those priests and priestesses, as representative of a particular religious order with whom Paul is preoccupied in Romans 1, are never spoken of as sinning (Paul is entirely circumspect and avoids the word "sin" and it does not appear in any ancient Greek ms of the text covering this episode) although derogatory language is justifiably utilised by the apostle. Equally, these religious devotees are nowhere in the text promised the blazing fires of hell as punishment. Yet these are religious people who firstly exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a creative process initiated in ancient physics by Venus the goddess of love "whose coming in the spring has scattered the clouds, flooded the sky with light, and filled the entire world with frenzied sexual desire" (Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve. How the Renaissance Began, 2011, 1), and then added to the fire by exchanging the truth about God for a lie concerning created things and moreover followed this by exchanging natural intercourse for a cohabitation preference for "chickens, quadrupeds, and snakes" (Rom 1.23). Intriguingly, the violent Mau Mau during the Kenyan uprisings of the early '50s of the past century, also included the latter in their revolting rites of passage.

Three EXCHANGES are met with Paul's retaliation of three REACTIONS of FatherMother God Anochi toward them. Notice especially the sequence.

[1] "God gave them up" (Rom 1.24). God surrendered them in their hearts to their own idolatry.

[2] "God gave them up" (Rom 1.26). God surrendered them in their bodies to their own idolatry.

[3] "God gave them up" (Rom 1.28). God surrendered them to a reprobate mind in their own idolatry.

God abandoned these idolaters when they embraced fully their idolatry in the deceitfulness of their own heart. The Lord Yeshua had said, "For from within, out of the heart of humanity proceeds evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander..." (Mt 15.19). Notice it now:

"God surrendered them to the passionate cravings of their own hearts to bestial profligacy" (Rom 1.24). To be profligate means to be characterised by licentiousness or dissipation; shameless dissoluteness. For males and females (Paul in this context does not refer to them as men and women) to turn to animals for sexual release reveals just how dark their minds had become. Indeed, "natural" as in "natural use" in Rom 1.26 is the Greek phusis which Greek scholar Marvin Vincent explains is "the nature of things, the force, laws, order of nature, as opposed to that which is monstrous, abnormal, perverse." "Against nature" is para phusin "that which is against nature's laws." Is it against nature's laws for human beings to copulate with animal-kind? Yes, it most certainly is!

Psychiatrist Dr Murray Banks used to relate a story of a man seeking help who came into his office and shared that he had a sexual love for horses. The Dr asked, "Stallions or mares?" The patient responded, "Mares of course! What? Do you think I'm queer?"

This is why Alva McClain in his lectures on Romans says "They became depraved in heart [Rom 1.24] when God gave them up. First it is the heart, then it is the body [Rom 1.26]. Next, "God gave them up to a reprobate mind." [Rom 1.28] A depraved heart, a depraved body, a depraved mind. The word reprobate means 'tested and found to be no good' , like a piece of tested steel in a machine shop. God tested man and gave him up. Men vied with one another to invent new forms of vice in the days of Paul" (Alva J. McClain, Romans: The Gospel of God's Grace, 1973, 67,68).

Recall Tacitus (d. 117 CE) describing the city of Rome as "the common sewer into which everything infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world" (Tacitus, Annals XV, 44). And Livy's (d. 17 CE) comments about Rome in his day: "We have now reached a point where your degeneracy is intolerable."

But rather than a judgment of hellfire, these participants are spoken of as "receiving in their own bodies and personalities the penalty of that retribution which was a necessity in the nature of the case because of these deviations from the norm , which was their fitting retribution" (Rom 1.27). Disease in their bodies, and the development of a largely effeminate disposition so that anybody could identify them as who and what they really were! Remember, we are talking about a cabal of religious identities who lived in the later Second Temple era. We are not talking about (and neither is Paul) modern day ordinary "run-of-the-mill" gays. Indeed, the IMCF is one place on earth where authentic spiritually-oriented gays, and gays in monogamous relationships, can be included in our membership without any reservations or negative judgmental attitudes expressed toward them. Again, lust in any of its forms is to be avoided. Lust is wrong, wrong, wrong. God wants us to be loving ALL people, not lusting after them. We all need to be on the alert to be as accommodating to fellow believers as we are able to be. In no way should our Gospel be one of alienation, but reconciliation. That is reconciliation IN Christ, not reconciliation in accord with our views of "right" versus "wrong" sexual expression.

This doctrine of accommodation is found all throughout the biblical revelation and finally is seen in Yeshua's accommodation to the spirits of the righteous dead by his descent into that gloomy area of Sheol itself to empty it. I have written extensively in another lecture on this matter.

We all need to go forth ourselves into the loving embrace of the God who accommodates to human need. That accommodation of God extends even into some of the most unworthy and horrendous practices that continues to abound today all over the world. That issue I am speaking about specifically is slavery.

The world in which Paul found himself was one of a harsh Pax Romana dictatorship and the common-day occurrence of slavery , and surprise, surprise, nowhere did the intelligent Jewish rabbi discount the right of people to engage in slavery and/or to possess slave holdings. And, I might just add, that in my view slavery is the most heinous and destructive form of subjugation and captivity that has ever existed. I speak not just about slavery in its common understood form, but also in the category of captive wives who as domestic slaves labour for very little return (even in regard to respect let alone love) from husbands or children. But in God's accommodation to humankind there is not one word in the entirety of the biblical revelation that speaks out against slavery. True, Paul had written that slaves had to obey their masters (Eph 6.5-9) and yet if a Christian slave could gain his freedom then he or she ought to take the risk of attempting to obtain it (1 Cor 7.21-24). But having said this, Paul nowhere encourages the sentiment of liberty and freedom for slaves. Nowhere.

Paul's silence has been used in fairly recent times to give slaveholders every right to possess and use, and cruelly abuse and even murder, slaves. There was, I might remind some folk who are not US citizens, a God-awful Civil War fought in America and while it was fought on economic grounds one of its fundamental activities was to free the African slaves who were captive in what became the Confederate States. In fact, Abraham Lincoln made halting expansion of slavery his campaign issue for election to the Presidency. It was his election in 1860 which initially triggered seven states to secede from the Union and to form the Confederate States. Four more states seceded when war broke out. The awful truth is that the Bible was more often than not used to prove slavery to be entirely permissible and further that it had God's approval. What was mistaken was the notion among anti-abolitionists that just because God was accommodating to something or other did not necessarily mean that God approved of it.

This is why we all must be cautious as to how we actually use the contents of the Bible which contains the Word of God. I have stated many times that I not only love the Bible, but that it is my whole life's work to enthusiastically promote a proper evaluation of that ancient compilation and embodiment of texts which point to God's Salvific intentions for the entirety of the human race, and indeed the universe. The holy Bible, although inspired by the holy Spirit, was written onto the parchments by fallible human beings subject to the constraints and restraints of their own day and age.

While the Bible contains the Word of God and is inspired by the Ruach HaKodesh it remains, however, a very human literary garment that both hides , and reveals , spiritual infallibility. (See my article, Are There Contradictions in the Bible? On our public BRI/IMCF site.)

In any event, it is high time somebody taught this fact of God's accommodation to humankind with the authority of the Mashiach Himself.

Having spoken about the evil of slavery and some people's view of what constitutes "righteous behaviour" (as in the case of Abraham's nephew Lot) I now wish to speak on Paul's considerations regarding sexual activity that is profoundly frowned upon in certain Christian quarters.

WOULD PAUL SUPPORT THE LGBTI MOVEMENT TODAY?
It might surprise some reading (or hearing) this lecture that nowhere does the great apostle to the Gentiles actually speak out against men and women who orient preferentially in homosexual, or homogenital, behaviours. It is my personal belief that Paul , had he lived in our modern largely democratic society , would have been supportive of the modern LGBTI movement. Of course, his concern would be toward those of his followers who were Christians, and not necessarily those who were one with the world. Again, this is merely an opinion but I am free in our democracy to express it.

Rather, Paul has a particular people in mind when he pens his introduction to his Letter to the Roman Christians, and this fact is usually overlooked in modern Christian exegesis. The sexual depravity and decadence of the emperors , including Caligula who had sex with his sisters in front of his frightened wife , is well documented (Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars). The homosexuality of these same men was not looked upon by the authors of Roman history as anything other than normal and I include emperors Trajan and Hadrian in this list. In fact homosexuality as such was looked upon by those same ancient authorities as "normal" while their depravity displayed itself in extreme forms of sexual license and oftentimes sadistic afflictions and tortures. It horrified the apostle Paul that while the Roman emperors subjected their slave-girls, wives and other women to different forms of bestiality the women Paul had in mind freely chose to "change the natural use into that which is against nature" (Rom 1.26). Lesbianism is not at all under discussion, as documents of the time reveal, but the horror of depraved copulation (and other forms of sexual perversion) with goats, pigs and ponies most assuredly is what rightly nauseated Rav Shaul!

And where did this dreadful decadence come from? Where did it originate? How did it invade Rome, the capitol of the world? Let Juvenal answer: "The river Orontes has long flowed into the Tiber" (lll, 62). The Orontes originates in Lebanon and flows through Syria and Turkey before it empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Juvenal long recognised the region from which the degeneracy and decadence that preoccupied Rome for some centuries had originally stemmed. It came from the slave stocks which Roman troops had imported from Lebanon and Syria and Babylonia into Italy. The slaves multiplied so rapidly and brought with them their sick "Mystery religions" that the original stock of Latins eventually were overrun and they ultimately disappeared from Italy having emigrated enmasse (due to the perversions and decadence these slaves brought with them) into the regions of northern Scandinavia and certain areas of eastern Europe.

CURSE OF IDOLATRY
In the very start of his epistle to the Christians at Rome, Paul sweepingly condemns the entirety of the world. He calls down the judgments of God. But he begins with Gentile idolatry. The reason he does so is due to the fact that he is writing to the Christians in Rome, the world centre of the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. He starts with the condemnation of God toward (and on) widespread decadent idolatrous practices which had permeated the entirety of the Mediterranean region, and these Babylonish "mystery cults" with their horrendous secret rites and ceremonies had saturated even Caesar's court.

"What is revealed is God"™s anger from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who in their wickedness keep suppressing the truth" (Rom 1.18).

These particular idolatrous religious authority figures were the worst kind of sexual perverts, debasing females as little more than sex objects to use and abuse at their pleasure , but promising eternal life for those who indulged their wildest, ungoverned fantasies. Women of all sorts , whether free, slaves, aristocratic or peasant "fish wives" , were "elevated" to priestess status and were readily available for the pleasure of any man (or patrician high-born woman) at a price. Anything could go as long as the client had the money to pay for it.

This sort-of reminds me of today's world, and (still) largely hidden and "dark" sex clubs where (for a price) a woman or child can be purchased, pleasured, sexually tortured, and then killed in a padded room at the exclusive club. No questions asked. In Belgium in recent years an exclusive club for homosexuals was uncovered, where a naked sex slave could be beaten to death with baseball bats or sliced into pieces with a sharp machete or with knives after the client had received the sexual favours he sought. It came of course at a very high price. And so, Paul speaks of these abominations saturating Rome. And, please keep in mind, that where our English word "abomination" or "abominable" is used it is always a translation of a Hebrew or Greek term intended to speak of cultic or religious activity. (Hebrew, toevah; Greek, bdelugma). "Abomination" is not utilised in association with otherwise "normal" sexual activity devoid of ritualistic or ceremonial religious significance.

You may well be thinking: What kind of CHARACTER would such a person have, if any? Paul takes pains to inform us:

"They are filled with every kind of injustice, evil, avarice and vice; stuffed with envy, murder, quarrelling, dishonesty and ill-will; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God; they are insolent, arrogant and boastful; they plan evil schemes; they disobey parental authority and disappoint their expectations of them; they are brainless, faithless, heartless without natural affection and ruthless. They KNOW well enough God"™s righteous decree that people who do such things deserve to die; YET not only do they keep habitually doing them, but they applaud and take immense pleasure in others who do the same" (Romans 1.18-32 Tentative BRI/IMCF Version).

This is not a descriptive appraisal of normal human beings whether they be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transgender or whatever the case may be. These descriptions are aimed at the characteristics of these particular peculiar religious apostates. Short and simple. They were intelligent enough to have the RIGHT understanding of God only to reject it and to transplant it with a load of Babylonish Hermetic rubbish and rot. Notice Paul says that they did not like to retain the proper knowledge of God in their thoughts, but rather SUPPRESSED the truth about the living God (which they obviously knew) and to REPLACE it with sexual deviancy which constellated around sexual activity with animals. These priests and priestesses were still popular in Alexandria in Egypt during the First World War and were instrumental in the physical and personality destruction of many an allied soldier who visited their brothels.

THE "WISDOM OF SOLOMON" , PAUL'S SOURCE FOR HIS CONDEMNATION OF RELIGIOUS IDOLATRY
If you are a long-time student of the biblical revelation you will be familiar with the Wisdom of Solomon which is quoted as Scripture throughout the Messianic Scriptures, although not by name. It is located in the set of secret mystical volumes the church has categorised as The Apocrypha. It is and remains Jewish Scripture. I would recommend that our students take time out and read Wisdom 13.1-14.31 and then re-read Romans 1. It is almost identical. It is quite apparent that Paul has rewritten, in edited form, these two chapters for the purpose of making his point to the Roman Christians concerning the present idolatrous evil he knew that they faced in the capitol of the Roman empire at any time of day or night. It also remains a very present warning for us today in our depraved western world. (For lack of time and space I cannot include Wisdom here, but I recommend all our student body to obtain a copy of the Apocrypha , it is Scripture , and to educate oneself with this material.)

Denying the true nature of God Almighty , and please bear in mind that we human beings are made in the IMAGE of God , has led to a perverted understanding of the living Creator and HisHer intentions for humankind. We have witnessed this in the Talmudic "takeover" of the religion of Moses which has become what is called today "Judaism." It is witnessed in what is now known as Christianity, really... Churchianity. It takes little intellect or acumen to grasp that if we fail to understand the nature of GOD, we will be led to a failure in ultimately understanding ourselves.

The Messianic Movement today is in its infancy. It will certainly bring into a fulfillment that which Paul revealed in Romans 9,10,11. But there is an imperative need for an authentic education throughout the Messianic Movement, beguiled as much of it is with Sinaitic legalism promoted by teachers who are far too fond of a corrupt Talmudic Judaism. As the Messianic Movement flourishes, the pagan world is rapidly facing a coming travail that will bring about the most horrific "End of Days" as delineated and forewarned in the Apocalypse. In our world today we are daily faced with a literal flood of lost people, largely disoriented and without (as Jeremiah promised) "a future and a hope." They are a hurting people, a discouraged people, a people without ambition because they have no fresh ideas, dreams and goals. And God lays the blame, the accountability, on the heads of priests. "My people," he declares, "are destroyed for lack of [authentic] knowledge" (Hos 4.6).

It is our calling to reach out to those in need, and to impress upon them an appreciation of truth, RIGHT knowledge, directed from a RIGHT teaching ministry available for their needs and concerns with appropriate answers to life's larger questions. A bankrupt Churchianity has failed them. A largely legalistic mindset in the Messianic Movement will fair such people no better. We have been in the re-education business for the past 40 years.

It is high time this Gospel of God's Salvific unconditionally loving will to save all humanity and indeed the universe is given a wider audience. We know the historic church has lost its power and this is because it early lost the Gospel.

I have proclaimed for decades that the entire Gentile Christian community got the intent, purpose and plan of God for humankind wrong very early in its history. This was due to the insistence of the established Christian Community that they had, as a universal church, replaced the Jewish nation, the community of Israel, as the Chosen People of God. Therefore, and upon this premise...

The church got the beginning of the story wrong.

The church got the eschatological ending of the story wrong.

And the church got the Gracious story-plot itself wrong.

If the church has lost the original Gospel and is therefore powerless it is primarily due to the fact that THE GOSPEL IS THE POWER. God has invested His power in the truth we teach. As a song proclaims, "our God is marching on."

The question is, are we keeping up with Him?

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE NINE

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