Sabbath 12/2/30/120
Dear Friends,
This week the Roman Catholic Church has finally admitted what we have been saying
for untold centuries, namely that the doctrine of Limbo has no theological basis
to it and is a heresy which impugns the nature of God.
Roman Catholic clergy interpreted the doctrine of original sin that man inherited through Adam and thus had to die quite adversely to the written intent of the Bible.
After the Athanasian system had triumphed in 381 at The Council of Constantinople and the Trinity was defined and declared dogma, Augustine of Hippo converted to Roman Catholicism and declared that all people not baptised by the Trinitarian Church went to hell, that included unbaptised infants. The Vatican declared this week that it was not going to revert to Augustine’s doctrine that all unbaptised infants go to hell. Richard McBrien, professor of Theology at Notre Dame University is reported by Nicole Winfield AP as saying: “If there is no Limbo and we’re not going to revert to St Augustine’s teaching that unbaptised infants go to hell, we’re left with only one option, namely that everyone is born in a state of grace.”
Now how can that be if they are born with original sin? Professor McBrien is reported as writing: “Baptism does not exist to wipe away the “stain” of original sin, but to initiate one into the church.” By the church they mean the Church of Rome and not the body of Christ.
The church to force parents to have their children baptised into the Church of Rome and thus enforce a psychological commitment to that institution invented limbo. The pressing needs of the church are to deal with the ever-increasing number of abortions and infants who die with out baptism. The doctrine of Limbo thus created a serious theological problem or psychological stress on the laity.
The Roman Catholic doctrines of heaven and hell are philosophically illogical or absurd and religiously or biblically unsound and heretical.
The Bible is quite clear that the dead will be resurrected to life and judgment. There will be two Resurrections of the dead. The First will be at the return of Christ for those baptised into the body of Christ and who have retained the faith once delivered to the saints. These people of the First Resurrection will love and reign together with Christ at Jerusalem for a thousand years. The REST OF THE DEAD were not resurrected but remained in the grave for one thousand years and then every living human descendant of Adam and Eve would be resurrected and judged (cf Rev. Chapter 20 and the paper The Resurrection of the Dead (No. 143)).
The Bible is quite specific concerning the Resurrection of the Dead and it is an integral part of the doctrine of the church. It is so important that the church regarded it as a test of true believers in the second century. Anyone who said that when they died they went to heaven showed thereby that they were not true Christians but Gnostic impostors. Justine Martyr of the church in Rome in the middle of the second century wrote to the Roman authorities and in his Dialogue with Trypho (LXXX) concerning the faith made the following profession where he upheld the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead and condemned and unchristian the doctrine of heaven and hell.
Justin said: “Moreover I pointed out to you that some who are called Christians, but are godless impious heretics, teach doctrines that are in every way blasphemous, atheistical and foolish. But that you may know that I do not say this before you alone, I shall draw up a statement, so far as I can, of all the arguments which have passed between us; on which I shall record myself as admitting the very same things which I admit to you. For I choose to follow not men or men’s doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] by Him. For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this [truth], and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob; who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and their souls when they die are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians, even as one, if he would rightly consider it, would not admit that the Sadducees, or similar sects of Genistae, Meristae, Galileans, Hellenists, Pharisees, Baptists, are Jews (do not hear me impatiently when I tell you what think), but are [only] called Jews and children of Abraham, worshipping God with the lips, as God Himself declared, but the heart was far from Him. But I and others who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built adorned and enlarged, [as] the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare.” (cf Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. 1, p239 emphasis added) (The Genistae were understood those who reckoned their descent from Abraham as a salvation and the Meristae were so called because they separated the Scriptures ibid, fn 5).
It is thus obvious that in the Christian Church in Rome in the second century anyone who proclaimed the doctrines of Heaven and Hell would have been immediately declared heretical. They should have been removed from the faith.
However these Gnostic parasites latched on to the church like leeches and the church did not purify themselves of these heretics and their doctrines permeated the church with every opportunist as they did with Judaism and Paganism alike. Gnostic belief in heaven and hell adapted to these three major systems introducing its heresy as it went.
The Roman Catholic Church had no formal doctrine on Limbo because there was no basis they could point to in even the heretical Fathers for that view. However their theologians came to teach that Limbo was a state where children were suspended in some natural happiness but separate from God. Such a view was not even dreamt up at this time in even the false church system. The churches position in the second century was that they died and were buried and lay in the grave or the sea or wherever their remains lay until the Second Resurrection of the Dead because there was no such thing as infant baptism until the church introduced in as a political exercise and Augustine if Hippo developed its false theology.
However Purgatory had made its ugly entrance into the false of Judaism where one of these false teachings entered Christianity in the guise of the Apocrypha.
The doctrines that contradict received Scripture come from the Books of the
Maccabees. These books were written in the inter-Testament period of 350 years
or seven Jubilees when the prophets had ceased to proclaim new Scripture. It
was understood that fact had happened and Scripture had been closed from the
death of Ezra after the Jubilee of 324 BCE in the beginning of 323 BCE. The
canon was thus determined before 321 BCE.
The Second Book of Maccabees in chapter 14 clearly shows that suicide was not
considered a dishonourable thing but rather it was preferable to violation at
the hands of evil men (cf 2Mac. 14:42). 2 Maccabees 14:46 clearly shows that
Nicanor’s attempt at the capture of Razias was frustrated by the suicide of
Razias and his words show that he expected to be resurrected in the body and
the bowels that he had removed were to be restored to him by God.
The resurrection is mentioned in 2 Maccabees 12:44 where Judas ever kept the
resurrection in mind and said prayers for the dead so that they would rise when
they had fallen. Gnostic impostors on Christianity have to denounce the concept
of prayers for the dead in the resurrection as it conflicts with the doctrine
of Heaven and Hell. The NT indeed has mention of prayers and even baptism for
the dead. It was Judas that mentions the fact of the expiatory sacrifice (with
financial offering) for the dead for their ensured resurrection in final Judgment
because they had died with idolatrous objects on their persons being the false
gods of Jamnia (2 Mac, 12: 38-46). These dedicated Jews were concerned that
their men may have even forfeited their place in the resurrection because of
it. This text has been misconstrued by Gnostics as indicating purgatory, which
it does not do at all. They base this on the promise of going to heaven on death
and so such prayers indicate these people are not in heaven and so there must
be another place called purgatory. The fault lies in their heretical doctrines
not in the text in Maccabees. That work is simply an historical text. It’s reason
for inclusion is so that purgatory can be argued based on a false and heretical
Gnostic premise. The text is not meant to be a revelatory text inspired by God.
The NT church itself baptised to save the dead and have them enter the First
Resurrection as Righteous people. This can be seen from the practice observed
by Paul.
I Corinthians 15:28-29
28: When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one. 29: Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf.
These views entered the inter-Testament period and carried on into the NT
until the exact sequence was fully detailed by the Apostles and finally through
Christ to John in Revelation.
Tobit or Tobias also shows the view of good deeds being able to be laid up against
the Day of Judgment (called day of distress) (cf Tobit 4:1-10 esp. 10.), which
the Gnostics refer to as death because they do not understand or believe in
the Resurrection of the Dead. Prayer fasting and alms is the true treasure to
be laid up against the Day of Judgment (Tob. 12:9) but the Gnostics again interpret
this almsgiving as Temple offerings rather than alms giving to the poor. These
words are attributed to Raphael one of the Seven Angels understood to stand
before the Throne of God. Thus the concepts of Revelation were understood from
ancient times but reference to concepts does not make a book inspired and whilst
an historical work of importance this work is not part of the Canon and nor
are any of the Apocryphal works because they construct accepted canonical texts
and thus are not God breathed or inspired.
However not all of the Apocrypha is accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as
it contradicts these other heretical doctrines.
The fact of the matter is that neither Limbo nor Purgatory exist or are even mentioned in the text of the Bible and the text in Maccabees is misconstrued to imply.
At least the Roman Catholics have had the decency to admit the imbecility of the doctrine while now denying that it ever was doctrine so as not to impugn their other more recent myth of the infallibility of the Pope.
The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead is fundamental to Christianity
and anyone who says that when they die they go to heaven is a Gnostic heretic
who is and always has been a false Christian.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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