Christian
Churches of God
No. 225
Introduction to Christianity
(Edition 1.0
19990315-19990315)
This is a short introduction to Christianity.
Despite what the Bible says none of the major mainstream systems of Judaism,
Islam or Trinitarian Christianity do what God says.
Christian
Churches of God
E-mail: secretary@ccg.org
(Copyright © 1999 Wade Cox)
This paper may be freely copied and distributed provided it
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http://www.logon.org and http://www.ccg.org
Introduction
to Christianity
Christ was a Jew. He kept the Laws of God and obeyed God in every respect. He was without sin and sin is transgression of the Law. Christ kept the Bible Sabbaths in accordance with the calendar in use at the time in the Temple at Jerusalem and among the Samaritans.
The modern Jewish Calendar was not
formulated until 358 CE and is based on postponing God’s Holy Days due to
tradition (cf. the paper God’s Calendar (No.
156) et seq and Law and the
Fourth Commandment (No. 256)).
The church did not worship on Sunday until the middle of the second century and
from Rome (cf. The Role of the Fourth
Commandment in the Historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170)). It did not keep the pagan Easter
system until the Quarto-Deciman dispute between 152 and 190 CE (cf. The Quartodeciman Disputes (No. 277) and The Origins of
Christmas and Easter (No. 235)).
Jesus Christ is not the real name of the
man we know to be the son of God (cf. The Significance of
the Term Son of God (No. 211)).
He was called Yahoshua or Joshua (cf. Joshua, the Messiah
the Son of God (No. 134)). He
had a number of brothers and sisters who came to play prominent roles in the
church after his death. The names of his brothers are all recorded in the Bible
and the early writings of the Church (cf. Ante
Nicene Fathers). Their descendants were murdered at the instigation of the
Roman church from the Fourth century (cf. The Virgin Mariam and the Family of Christ (No. 232)). Christ never at any stage claimed to
be God. The church never held him to have been true God or even equal to or
co-eternal with God for the first two centuries of this era (cf. The Early Theology of
the Godhead (No. 127)). None
of the Apostles were Trinitarians. The Trinity was not even formulated at the
Council of Nicaea in 325. It was formulated at the Council of Constantinople in
381 CE (cf. Binitarianism and
Trinitarianism (No. 076); Consubstantial with
the Father (No. 081); and The Holy Spirit (No.
117)).
The argument that Christ was God as part of the one being in the aspect of the only Son was a doctrine of the worship of the god Attis which was a Lydian deity that became entrenched in Rome. It was another aspect of the worship of Ishtar or Easter or Astarte or Ashtaroth. By the dawn of the Fourth century the priests of Attis were complaining that the Christians had stolen all their doctrines (cf. Ibid. (No. 235) and also Purification and Circumcision (No. 251)). The notion that Christ had to be God as God was God actually comes from Greek philosophy due to the limitations in their language. They had no word for the love of God and hence they had to borrow a Hebrew word ahabah for this concept which they made into agape. They argued that only God could atone or reconcile men to himself. If Jesus were not God then how could he achieve that reconciliation. This idea was false but nevertheless it was accepted by the Greeks who were placed in charge of the eastern churches removing Christ’s relatives called the Desposyni (cf. ibid (No. 232)). This was actually then combined with an ancient system of the pagan Triune God (cf. The Development of the Neo-Platonist Model (No. 017) and The Purpose of the Creation and the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ (No. 160)).
As a result of the Arian wars and the conversions of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons the Sabbath-keeping Church became oppressed by the Roman Empire’s faction who were the Trinitarians (cf. General Distribution of the Sabbath-keeping Churches (No 122); ibid (No. 170) and Cox-Kohn, The Sabbatarians in Transylvania, CCG Publications, 1998, pp. i-xxvii).
The Sabbatarians, although oppressed in Europe, gave rise to the Protestant Reformation which failed to restore the true faith (cf. Socinianism, Arianism and Unitarianism (No. 185)).
The Jews believed that God had never revealed Himself to man and that the Law was given to them through the Great Angel of Yahovah also called Yahovah who was Israel’s second God. He acted and spoke for God and was with Israel in the pillar of fire and cloud in the Exodus. This position was also that of the Apostles and the early church (cf. The Angel of YHVH (No. 024); Psalm 45 (No. 177); Psalm 110 (No. 178); The Etymology of the Name of God (No. 220) and Isaiah 9:6 (No. 224)). The church believed that the god of this world was Satan (cf. Lucifer: Light Bearer and Morning Star (No. 223)). The church did not believe in heaven and hell and rejected the concept of the Immortal Soul as a godless and blasphemous doctrine (cf. The Soul No. (092) and On Immortality (No. 165)). People who believed that when you died you went to heaven were Gnostics and they imported other doctrines into the church (cf. Vegetarianism and the Bible (No. 183); Wine in the Bible (No. 188); and The Nicolaitans (No. 202)).
The church would not commence to rule until the advent at the first resurrection and they would rule the planet for a thousand years under Messiah and then take part in the second resurrection and prepare the planet for the City of God (cf. The Millennium and the Rapture (No. 095) and The City of God (No. 180)).
Christ had a specific role to play in the
creation. He was not the One True God. He was sent by the One True God and to
understand that is to have eternal life (Jn. 17:3) (cf. The Role of
the Messiah (No. 226)).
Whilst he was not the Most High God, Eloah, he did have pre-existence (cf. The Pre-Existence of
Jesus Christ (No. 243)). He
was part of the extended sons of God present at the creation understood in the
plural sense as elohim. The church understood and taught for centuries that the
elect would become elohim as the Angel of Yahovah at their head (cf. Zechariah
12:8 and The Elect as Elohim (No. 001)).
The intrusion of the false doctrine of the Triune God forming the Trinity then gave rise to the formation of Islam that rejected the concepts entirely. The Prophet, wrongly called Muhammad, and the first four caliphs called the rightly guided caliphs were the only doctrinally pure Muslim leaders. After them Islam collapsed and became perverted by traditions as had Judaism and Christianity before them (cf. Christ and the Koran (No. 163) and The Sabbath in the Qur’an (No. 274)).
Christ was not the One True God whom no man has seen nor ever can see and who alone is immortal (1Timothy 6:16; cf. Christ and Deity (No. 237)). Christ was the Arche of the Creation of God and had a specific purpose in the creation (cf. Arche of the Creation of God as Alpha and Omega (No. 229)). The creation has a specific plan which is mirrored in the feasts of the Bible (cf. God’s Feasts as they relate to the Creation (No. 227)). Soon Messiah will return to save those who eagerly await him and to establish God’s Law and system of government on the planet (cf. Outline Timetable of the Age (No. 272) and the Law and the Commandments series (Nos. 252ff)).
The church is a small body selected and called out over the last two thousand years and prepared for the millennial government of God. They are the Temple of God and are sanctified and by their actions and efforts help in the work God has given Messiah to accomplish (cf. Sanctification of the Temple of God (No. 241); Measuring the Temple (No. 137); The Government of God (No. 174) and God and the Church (No. 151)).
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