Major Christian Stances and Their Influence

Live from Salt Lake City, Utah, this is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology., where we do all we can to worship God in Spirit and in truth. And I am Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion., your host. How about a prayer to God – I need it?

PRAYER

Show 60 Four Approaches, Three Major Fails Part III December 18th 2018

Hey, just an FYI, but next week on HOTM – which we know is celebrated as Christmas, we want you to join us (if you have nothing better to do) as we will have my daughters and husbands (if they have them) and Gboys joining us on stage for a short X-MASS get together. No big deal, but we really want you to invite you into our lives for a minute and see what it's like to get together openly and in love for all.

Diverse Pathways in Christianity

Last week I got a call on a phone that is very private and I ignored it, but because it was 801 (a Utah area code), I thought I’d call it back. Take a listen to what I heard: Call the number on phone 801 285-9434. Interestingly enough, this call and its dark warnings speak in some ways to our show tonight on the three stances and their fails.

So here we are. Part three – the final simple survey through the ways and means of Orthodoxy, Protestantism, and Restorationism writ large, and we are doing it because these three stances represent the majority stances of Christianity in the world today. Isn’t that amazing that we have three MASSIVE stances on Jesus and Christianity, listen to the numbers:

Roman Catholics – 1.3 Billion
Eastern Orthodoxy – 16 million (and there are a lot of them – I mean a lot)
Protestantism – around 950 Million
And Restorationists at around 40 Million.

That’s over 2 billion people – well over – and many of them believe their way is the right way and the rest are not. Why has God allowed this in this world? So many maintain that theirs is the way because in a world of so many differences there HAS to be a right way . . . they just can’t see any other way around it. But there is a way around it. And it is a way that is plainly described in the book where we find its history.

Assessing Religious Authority

So we started off talking about authority in these churches and showed how they have none, but more importantly that WITH the authority they claim to have, what they have done with it over the course of their respective existences is NOT reflected in scripture's description of the Apostolic church.

Now listen – please – I personally don’t care what path people choose to take in their walk with God through Christ – I really don’t, and the reason I don’t is because I don’t think it really matters to God that much. I mean, He knew what men would do with the faith. And He knows that there is a lot of deep, heart-felt devotion to Him through all these different approaches. Please don’t get this wrong about me.

I am honestly committed to the idea that there are tons of fantastic, wonderful Christians who frequent these three broad approaches today – some of them are dear friends – and their approach to the faith has not hindered them from being loving, sacrificing, kind souls. The point and purpose of this examination is for the seekers of truth that are out there to hear the brass tacks of the faith without ANY obfuscation.

This is what “Heart of the Matter” – if you haven’t noticed – is all about. Getting to the heart or ROOT of things by brazenly cutting through all the shenanigans – no holds, blows, or kicks barred.

And while I respect whatever people want to believe and do relative to the faith, it is truly a source of HUMOR when people embrace a religious system and actually think – that in the face of all the other thousands of systems out there supporting salvation by and through Jesus, that theirs is the BEST, that theirs is unassailable, and that they and they alone have landed on the absolute truth about how to view, see, and worship God through Christ. I mean it’s just utterly comical. My hacking at the jungle of my own certainty started with Mormonism.

Then went to Evangelicalism.

Others try a lot more organized approaches until they land where they are comfortable but many actually try nothing else and turn directly to atheism.

So again, to those who land somewhere, it’s all fine by me. Have

The Correct Understanding of Brick and Mortar Organizations

Join one – join ‘em all. But in the end, NONE of them are right and here is why – because the Bible plainly tells us that there was never supposed to be a correct brick and mortar organization on earth. Men and women are WAY too fallible – too influenced by corruption – too fearful of change – to ever manage such a thing – though they have tried. But most importantly, the WORD itself proves this stance over and over again. See, again – God had a solution – He said he would write His laws on the hearts and minds of His own and He would make true believers his body on earth. This would be His New Testament. Don’t believe me. Read Jeremiah 31:31-34.

That is how it has been since Jesus wrapped the former age of religion up once and for all with his coming to rescue His church which was manageable in that day and age . . . and barely – by his apostles.

Insights on the Second Coming

Last week I shared some quotes on His coming as having happened from both the Patristic Fathers, then from some others, including the late RC Sproul. Tonight, before we address the final topic between the three majors, I want to give you a quick summation of what Jesus and His apostles said about His return to them then.

I have written a short book called, It’s Not the End of the World. It is available for you free on our website to download. It’s an easy, short read and answers many of the questions people have about end-times and the Bible. Go download it and test its contents. It’s free to you. No charge ever. If you want the truth about the second comingChrist’s return, fulfilled in 70 A.D., ending the old covenant—not the world. of Jesus, consider its contents, test the contents, challenge every word – but at least investigate claims for it before you just listen to all the arguments against it.

Jesus’ Words on His Return

So, let me just give you a few irrefutable passages that support the fact that Jesus was coming back to them/then, and if he came back to them/then, all the church playing is over – as supported by other passages in scripture.

Let’s start with Jesus. Standing before Caiaphas and He said to them/then, when asked if he was the Son of God: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall you will see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”

In instructing his Apostles to go out and preach, Jesus added in Mark 10:23 “…for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, before the Son of man comes.”

Then in Matthew 16:28 Jesus said to people standing right there: “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not experience deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God., till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”

One more – in Jesus day a generation in the Bible is roughly forty years. In Matthew 24, the Apostles asked Jesus for the sign of His coming and the end of the ageThe close of the old covenant era, fulfilled in 70 A.D.—not the end of the world., and when all the signs he had given them would happen, and after describing the signs THAT THEY WERE TO LOOK FOR. . . Jesus said:

Matthew 24:34 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place.

Men, not wanting to face the facts of Jesus words, try and twist them around to mean something different. They mean exactly what He said – and He either came back as He promised or He didn’t. If he didn’t, to hell with all this Bible stuff. But he did.

(beat)

We spent nearly two years in a verse by verseTGNN’s Bible teaching series—book-by-book, through the lens of fulfillment and spiritual liberty. study of Revelation. We tried to consider the perspectives the main views entertain – Idealism, FuturismThe belief that end-times prophecies are still future—TGNN teaches they were fulfilled in 70 A.D. More, Historicism, and PreterismThe belief that all biblical prophecy—especially “end times”—was fulfilled by 70 A.D. More – partial and full. At the end of the day, I am going to bring the whole thing down to a couple passages.

The book was written by John and the Revelation was to the actual literal seven churches in Asia minor that existed then. It opens, and closes, with some very distinct clear words of Jesus. To the actual seven churches “THEN AND THERE” we read:

Revelation 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass;

Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are

The Immediacy of Revelation

Those who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near. The Greek words used for shortly and near in these two passages cannot mean ANYTHING but “very soon,” “about to happen.” What were the readers of Revelation in the Seven Churches to think in the face of this? Was John and Jesus and God wrong?

Revelation ends more emphatically about the immediacy of the contents happening to them, saying:

Revelation 22:6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.

Revelation 22:7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

Revelation 22:10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.

Revelation 22:12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

And John ends with these words, to the SEVEN actual churches that this revelation was written to then –

Revelation 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Biblical Interpretations and Church Teachings

Nearly 2000 years of church playing have passed – with politics, and crusades, and icons and incense and robes, and rituals, and materialisms – and Saint allegiance, and works/righteousness – when the Bible clearly tells seekers that all of THAT ended then and there.

I could spend the next five weeks proving how every one of the Apostles that wrote were CONVINCED that He was coming back to them/then – but we have done shows on this in the past. But ask yourselves, what exactly did Peter mean when he wrote:

1st Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

What did John mean when he wrote?

1Jo 2:18 (YLT) Little youths, it is the last hour; and even as ye heard that the antichrist doth come, even now antichrists have become many–whence we know that it is the last hour?

Do you know what the last hour means in scripture? And do you know how our scholars explain these words of the apostles? They say, “they obviously believed it was the end of age and that Jesus was coming back then – but they were wrong!

Exploring the Authority and Teachings of Religion

The point of this all is IF – IF (or better yet, . . SINCE) Jesus, and the Apostles and the book of RevelationA symbolic prophecy fulfilled in 70 A.D.—not a prediction of future global events. are correct . . . AS THEY STAND, then all the stuff Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Restorationism practices, preaches, teaches about institutional religion is dead and done.

And this includes – LISTEN now – this includes all the threats and warnings about sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace. (which we covered last week) that leads to . . . our final topic tonight – hell or afterlife punishment. In our first week we talked about claims of authority. Last week we talked about Sin, and we will now wrap our time up with the threats of eternal punishment most use to threaten their congregates.

See, that’s the 1-2-3 game of institutional religion, folks – if you haven’t thought about it:

NUMBER

•    We have the authority (therefore we have the right understanding of all things people must believe) 

NUMBER

•    You have sin in your life (meaning we are in the place to assess this in your life and to point it out to you in an assortment of ways and means) and then

NUMBER

•    if you don’t listen to us about your SIN and do what we tell you, you will go to hell!

(ON BOARD)

R E L I G I O N

AUTHORITY / SIN / HELL

This stands in direct opposition to what God has done for the world through His Son. He has all . . . Authority. He paid for all . . . Sin. And “Hell” is something of the past.

Get it? Do you see it? I am still a full blown believing sold out Christian. I long to do good and be sanctified by His Spirit continually. But I recognize FROM THE Scripture that God has had the total and complete victory over all things through His Son, and the world has been reconciled to Him through His shed blood, and that through that SAME blood all things have been completed – sin, death, the grave, hell – leaving every single human being subjectively responsible before God for the lives they choose to live.

So, let’s

Teachings on Afterlife Punishment

talk about the idiocy of the teachings and the notions of the threat of hell in the face of Jesus having had the victory over all things.

In terms of afterlife punishment, let’s work through the three stances quickly and generally.

Orthodoxy

Roman Catholicism speaks of and teaches of a hell, its descriptions vary depending on the speaker, but it is eternal and it is painful and there is no getting out. Boom. Done. However, the Catholics do mess with the Protestant views of hell a bit. For example, John Paul II, a former Pope who said:

The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (n. 1033).

Not bad. I appreciate the terms, “self-exclusion,” here because in the economies of a good God, afterlife punishment must somehow reflect what this pope said. I have to admit a closer affinity to the definitions of hell found in Non-Roman Orthodoxy than I do in Protestantism – and Restorationism. And within Orthodoxy I am very closely aligned with the Greek and Russian stance over the Roman Catholic.

Let me cite from Father John Romanides in Empirical Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church. There we read:

"The iconography of the Second Coming of Christ shows what Paradise is and what Hell is." He is referring to a picture and says: "Please go and find the icon of the Second Coming, and you will see that around Christ are those who are in Paradise. They are in a golden light; the light surrounding them is golden. This same golden light, as it gets further away from Christ, begins to change color, and gradually, the further away it goes, it turns from gold to red; and in the red light are the damned. The saved see Christ in a golden color, and the damned also see Christ from a distance, but they see the Light of Christ as red, because for the former it is the glory of God and for the latter it is the eternal fire, outer darkness and 'the consuming fire.'"

I’m not so sure about this but listen to what he says next:

From this point of view, therefore, we Orthodox Christians agree with the most liberal people in the world. No message can be more liberal than that of the Holy Fathers of the Church, who not only stress that, 'Son, we'll all go to the same place', but also emphasize that God loves everyone equally: the damned and the saved, the glorified and the saints, Angels and devils, good and bad, prostitutes and chaste…God loves all human beings equally, He loves everyone without distinction.

Finally, he adds:

The Church does not send anyone to Paradise or to Hell, but it prepares the faithful for the vision of Christ in glory, which everyone will have. God loves the damned as much as the Saints. He wants all to be cured, but not all accept the cure that He offers. Paradise and Hell do not exist from the point of view of God, but from the point of view of human beings. God will love everyone equally. He will send His grace to all, in the same way as He "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Saint Matthew 5:45). But everyone will not accept God's grace in the same way. Some will see God as Light and others as fire.

Biblical Considerations

Biblically speaking, and looking at the passages that address hell and punishment in context and from the Greek, and then in consideration of God being “Good and Love,” I am really closely aligned and impressed with the Orthodox understanding on afterlife states – with one major exception – they continue to await the return and therefore the resurrection, and therefore the judgement – and failing to see that it has all happened, their views of heaven and hell remain fairly constant for hundreds of years.

The worst views of afterlife punishment pop up from the Protestant stance as most

Understanding Hell and Afterlife Punishments

Of them are ardently sold out to Augustine’s understanding of hell and see it as an actual burning place of actual eternal flames and once a soul is there there is no getting out. This thinking runs into some real trouble when we consider a loving God because if we are to consider God omniscient and omnipotent, he winds up knowing who would go to hell, creating them anyway, and doing nothing to save them from its fiery clutches. That is really really mindless zealotry and is founded on an uncritical and uncontextual rendering of the text.

Restorationists mess around with hell in different ways, with some removing the fire and adding heavenly components (like the Mormons) and others admitting to it, but often sidestepping its eternality by preaching annihilationism of all non-saved. Again, I really appreciate Greek and Russian Orthodoxies general take on paradise and hell as it clearly supports the free-will of human beings in the hands of a loving God. This stance is somewhat rocky however when we look at their understanding of sin because to them, one sin unrepented of properly can lead to a person experiencing the red light of God (ostensibly forever) rather than the gold. Nevertheless, at least they see hell as the result of the person and their recalcitrance and not a matter of predestination or Godly desires. I support the Orthodox understanding of free will choice determining afterlife placement, and think their teachings echo a reasonable understanding of scripture.

Questions About Hell

But in the end, all of us are left to ask a few questions about afterlife punishment, hell, and/or the lake of Fire – whatever we are going to call them:

First, what is hell, what was it created for, and would it ever end? Who is Satan? Does he have reign over hell and its inhabitants, and is he leading people to a burning hell today? Then what did Jesus do 2000 years ago toward this fiery destination of woe and emptiness? Finally, what does scripture say that would be the end result of Satan and hell and all of such things once He came back and took His church bride?

The answers to all of this stuff, which is not created by me but is believed by me, is that all of that stuff was in existence and played out in the biblical age, and once Jesus returned – as the scripture says – it all ended. Satan and His angels and hell were all tossed into the Lake of Fire. They are over. Done. Death is done (spiritual death that is, and even physical through the resurrection, and we have lived in the new heaven and earth since this occurred in 70AD.

Nature of Hell and Satan

What does that age look like? Let me quickly respond to the questions I just asked:

First, what is hell, what was it created for, and would it ever end? Hell was called the covered place in the Old Testament where all disembodied souls went until Jesus propitiation for sin.

Who is Satan? Does he have reign over hell and its inhabitants, and is he leading people to a burning hell today? Satan’s role in that age is described in the book of Revelation – both in what he does and his final destination. He is over.

Finally, what does scripture say that would be the end result of Satan and hell and all of such things once He came back and took His church bride?

Conclusion

Let me conclude by once again citing Paul in 1st Corinthians 15. Paul has been talking about resurrection, and he says at verse 20:

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself

God’s Victory Over All

be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Folks, the 2 billion Christians can come together under the umbrella of His victory over all things. The text proves it. God is now all in all. Death, hell, Satan, sin, religious authority – all things of the past – things which Jesus saved the world from.

The Call to Faith

I suggest that God is calling to all to receive and believe on Him by faith on this amazing finished work of his son. I suggest that all of us are now responsible for the things we choose to believe and more importantly do – on our own – as reconciled souls.

The Freedom in Christ

This is the great new, allowing all of us to love and hold nothing back toward anyone. In this there is consummate freedom, something the religions have never supplied. It only comes by Christ directly…in the human heart.

We’re cutting out early tonight! See you next week – join us for a special McCraney family Christmas special, right here, on Heart of the Matter.