Is the Church Scriptural? (Part 1)

“And the Pharisees and some of the scribes assembled to Him, having come from Yerushalayim. And seeing some of His taught ones eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Yehuḏim, do not eat unless they wash their hands thoroughly, holding fast the tradition of the elders,

And coming from the market-place, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions which they have received and hold fast – the washing of cups and utensils and copper vessels and couches.

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do your taught ones not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

And He answering, said to them, “Well did Yeshayahu prophesy concerning you hypocrites, as it has been written, ‘This people respect Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.

And in vain do they worship Me, teaching as teachings the commands of men.’

Forsaking the command of Elohim, you hold fast the tradition of men.” (Mar 7:1-8)

Clearly we can see here that the “traditions of the Elders” are the traditions of men, and the traditions of men are in direct opposition to the Commandments of Elohim! Many Christians cannot make the distinction between these two statements. They are always quick to accuse someone of being a Pharisee when that person teaches Torah.

The Orthodox Jews of today are the Pharisees from the days of Y’shua. They have a second Law called the “Talmud” or “Oral Law,” which was created by Rabbi’s to control the Jews and make money off them amongst other reasons. Many times when Shaul (Paul) talks about the “law” in his letters, he is referring to the Talmud and not Torah, and as I have explained, Many Christians can’t make the distinction between the two and get confused and follow after lies. I am however not going to get in to this subject in this blog.

Now in the passage above, Y’shua rebuked the Pharisees concerning their “Oral Law” or “Traditions of the Elders.” Y’shua would be the biggest hypocrite under the sun if he rebuked anyone for guarding and keeping the Torah, as Y’shua himself guarded and kept the Torah of YHWH his Father.

Clearly it is an abomination to the Almighty to follow after the traditions of men. The Pharisees were rebuked by the Son of the Almighty YHWH for following after their Talmud (traditions of men) and not the Instruction of YHWH. It is totally logical to also say that following after the traditions of men other than the Talmud or Rabbinical order is also an abomination to YHWH.  With this in mind, it is very clear that if we follow after anything or anyone other than the Commandments (Instruction) of YHWH, we are following after the “Traditions of the Elders” and will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven!

Now to come to the point of this blog, is the Church teaching and leading you in the Commands of the Almighty, or is the Church teaching and leading you in the “traditions of the Elders?”

Let us take a more in-depth look at where the traditions and practices of the Church originate from!

Firstly, let us define “the Church.” The Catholic Church is usually referred to as the Church as it is the “Mother Church” where all the other denominations (daughter churches) get their doctrines, traditions and practices from. One could argue that their Christian denomination has nothing to do with the Catholic Church, but the fact of the matter is that it does. There are thousands upon thousands of Christian denominations, and all of them originate from the Catholic Church. So when I refer to the Christian Church, I am referring to all the Christian churches which you will see are all connected!

Let us now look at certain practices of the church and how it is supposed to be done according to the Scriptures (Word of the Almighty)

Sabbath

What Scripture says:

“But the seventh day is a Sabbath of יהוה (YHWH) your Elohim. You do not do any work – you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates

 For in six days יהוה made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore יהוה blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart” (Exodus 20:10-11)

 “And you, speak to the children of Yisra’ĕl, saying, ‘My Sabbaths you are to guard, by all means, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, to know that I, יהוה, am setting you apart

And you shall guard the Sabbath, for it is set-apart to you. Everyone who profanes it shall certainly be put to death, for anyone who does work on it, that being shall be cut off from among his people. Six days work is done, and on the seventh is a Sabbath of rest, set-apart to יהוה. Everyone doing work on the Sabbath day shall certainly be put to death. And the children of Yisra’ĕl shall guard the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant” (Exodus 31:13-16)

“Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it, guarding the Sabbath lest he profane it, and guarding his hand from doing any evil” (Isaiah 56:2)

“If you do turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My set-apart day, and shall call the Sabbath ‘a delight,’ the set-apart day of יהוה  ‘esteemed,’ and shall esteem it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words,

then you shall delight yourself in יהוה. And I shall cause you to ride on the heights of the earth, and feed you with the inheritance of Yaʽaqoḇ your father. For the mouth of יהוה  has spoken!” (Isa 58:13-14)

“For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make stand before Me,” declares יהוה, so your seed and your name shall stand.

And it shall be that from New Moon to New Moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,” declares יהוה.

And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm shall not die, and their fire not be quenched. And they shall be repulsive to all flesh!” (Isaiah 66:22-24)

 “And I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, to know that I am יהוה  who sets them apart. But the house of Yisra’ĕl rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not walk in My laws, and they rejected My right-rulings, which, if a man does, he shall live by them. And they greatly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out My wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them” (Ezekiel 20:12-13)

 “And pray that your flight does not take place in winter or on the Sabbath” (Matthew 24:20)

“And He came to Natsareth, where He had been brought up. And according to His practice, He went into the congregation on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read” (Luke 4:16)

“And when the Yehuḏim went out of the congregation, the gentiles begged to have these words spoken to them the next Sabbath” (Acts 13:42)

“And he was reasoning in the congregation every Sabbath, and won over both Yehuḏim and Greeks” (Acts 18:4)

“So there remains a Sabbath-keeping for the people of Elohim” (Hebrews 4:9)

What the Church teaches:

St. Paul enumerates the Sabbath among the Jewish observances which are not obligatory on Christians (Col., ii, 16; Gal., iv, 9-10; Rom., xiv, 5). The gentile converts held their religious meetings on Sunday (Acts, xx, 7; 1 Cor., xvi, 2) and with the disappearance of the Jewish Christian churches this day was exclusively observed as the Lord's Day. (See SUNDAY.)

Sunday (Day of the Sun), as the name of the first day of the week, is derived from Egyptian astrology. The seven planets, known to us as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, each had an hour of the day assigned to them, and the planet which was regent during the first hour of any day of the week gave its name to that day (see CALENDAR). During the first and second century the week of seven days was introduced into Rome from Egypt, and the Roman names of the planets were given to each successive day. The Teutonic nations seem to have adopted the week as a division of time from the Romans, but they changed the Roman names into those of corresponding Teutonic deities. Hence the dies Solis became Sunday (German, Sonntag). Sunday was the first day of the week according to the Jewish method of reckoning, but for Christians it began to take the place of the Jewish Sabbath in Apostolic times as the day set apart for the public and solemn worship of God. St. Ignatius (Ep. ad Magnes. ix) speaks of Christians as "no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also Our Life rose again". In the Epistle of Barnabas (xv) we read: "Wherefore, also, we keep the eight day (i. e. the first of the week) with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead".

St. Justin is the first Christian writer to call the day Sunday (I Apol., lxvii) in the celebrated passage in which he describes the worship offered by the early Christians on that day to God. The fact that they met together and offered public worship on Sunday necessitated a certain rest from work on that day. However, Tertullian (202) is the first writer who expressly mentions the Sunday rest: "We, however (just as tradition has taught us), on the day of the Lord's Resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude, deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the devil" ("De orat.", xxiii; cf. "Ad nation.", I, xiii; "Apolog.", xvi).

The express teaching of Christ and St. Paul prevented the early Christians from falling into the excesses of Jewish Sabbatarianism in the observance of the Sunday, and yet we find St. Cæsarius of Arles in the sixth century teaching that the holy Doctors of the Church had decreed that the whole glory of the Jewish Sabbath had been transferred to the Sunday, and that Christians must keep the Sunday holy in the same way as the Jews had been commanded to keep holy the Sabbath Day.

At the beginning of the sixth century St. Caesarius, as we have seen, and others showed an inclination to apply the law of the Jewish Sabbath to the observance of the Christian Sunday. TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS

Conclusion:

Clearly the Seventh Day Sabbath must be guarded and kept by anyone who desires to have a relationship with the Almighty. The observance of Sunday worship, which is dedicated to the Sun-Deity, is a man made tradition originating from pagan men who formed the Church and not from Scripture! Therefore, Sunday worship is an abomination to the Almighty! YHWH clearly says that we are to observe the Seventh Day Sabbath forever!

For more information on the importance of the Sabbath, see also: http://scripturaltruth101.blogspot.com/2011/03/shabbat.html and

http://scripturaltruth101.blogspot.com/2011/01/importance-of-sabbath.html

The Cross

What Scripture says:

“You do not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of that which is in the heavens above, or which is in the earth beneath, or which is in the waters under the earth, you do not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, יהוה  your Elohim am a jealous Ěl, visiting the crookedness of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and guard My commands” (Exodus 20:4-6)

“But this is what you do to them: Break down their altars, and smash their pillars, and cut down their Ashĕrim, and burn their carved images with fire” (Deut 7:5)

“The carved images of their mighty ones you are to burn with fire. Do not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it, for it is an abomination to יהוה  your Elohim” (Deut 7:25)

“but you have done more evil than all who were before you, for you have gone and made for yourself other mighty ones and moulded images to provoke Me, and have cast Me behind your back” (1 Kings 14:9)

“For they enraged Him with their high places, And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images” (Psa 78:58)

“See, all of them are useless, their works are naught, their moulded images are wind and confusion” (Isa 41:29)

We are not to make any carved or moulded images as it is evil. The Messiah did not die on a cross! Even the early Greek manuscripts say “Stouros” which means pole or upright stake, not cross! So where did the cross come from? Well, let us see what the church says about this.

What the Church teaches:

A tradition of the Church which our fathers have inherited, was the adoption of the words "cross" and "crucify." These words are nowhere to be found in the Greek of the New Testament. These words are mistranslations, a "later rendering," of the Greek words stauros and stauroo. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says, "STAUROS denotes, primarily, an upright pole or stake...Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pole, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two-beamed cross. The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea (Babylon), and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name)...By the middle of the 3rd century A.D. the churches had either departed from, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the pretige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross piece lowered, was adopted..." [1]

Dr. Bullinger, The Companion Bible, appx. 162 states, "crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian Sun-god...It should be stated that Constantine was a Sun-god worshipper...The evidence is thus complete, that the Lord was put to death upon and upright stake, and not on two pieces of timber placed at any angle." [2]

Rev. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, pp. 197-205, frankly calls the cross "this Pagan symbol...the Tau, the sign of the cross, the indisputable sign of Tammuz, the false Messiah...the mystic Tau of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) and Egyptians--the true original form of the letter T--the initial of the name of Tammus...the Babylonian cross was the recognized emblem of Tammuz." [3]

In the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, vol. 14, p. 273, we read, "In the Egyptian churches the cross was a pagan symbol of life borrowed by the Christians and interpreted in the pagan manner." Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche Mythologie, says that the Teutonic (Germanic) tribes had their idol Thor, symbolised by a hammer, while the Roman Christians had their crux (cross). It was thus somewhat easier for the Teutons to accept the Roman cross. [4]

Greek dictionaries, lexicons and other study books also declare the primary meaning of stauros to be an upright pale, pole or stake. The secondary meaning of "cross" is admitted by them to be a "later" rendering. At least two of them do not even mention "cross," and only render the meaning as "pole or stake." In spite of this strong evidence and proof that the word stauos should have been translated "stake," and the verb stauroo to have been translated "impale," almost all the common versions of the Scriptures persist with the Latin Vulgate's crux (cross), a "later" rendering of the Greek stauros. [5]

The cross also indicated the Equinox, when the Earth’s orbit “crossed” the celestial equator.

This mid-week evening was highly regarded as a night of majik ~ the Druids met to hold hands in a circle, chant, enchant, cast spells, and do it while surrounding a burning cross, the symbol of Woden (Odin).

Woden’s emblem was the Celtic Crux, a cross with the circle (the sun). No wonder we see so many pictures of crosses with the sun nimbus behind it, and sunsets in Christian

Art. TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS

Conclusion:

See even the church admits to the cross being of pagan origin. Why then is it so used in the Christian faith? This is because the church is based on Sun-Worship and not on Scripture as you have seen in the above topic and as you will see in the topics to follow.

For more info one the cross, see also:

http://scripturaltruth101.blogspot.com/2011/02/cross-or-pole.html

Priests and Pastors (Teacher or Father)

What Scripture says:

“But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi,’ for One is your Teacher, the Messiah, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your father, for One is your Father, He who is in the heavens. Neither be called leaders, for One is your Leader, the Messiah” (Mat 23:8-10)

What the Church teaches:

This is an obvious one, if you have ever been to church, you will notice that there are Fathers, Priests, Teachers, Reverends, Pastors, Teachers, Deacons etc. Did the Messiah not teach against this?

The church is based on the writings of the post-apostolic church fathers rather than on Scripture. You can read more about it here: http://scripturaltruth101.blogspot.com/2011/03/founders-of-all-gentile-church.html

This should be one of the most obvious signs that the church is not correct according to Scripture. If you read what is written in Scripture and see that the church does what is forbidden by the Almighty, and a flag does not go up, then you must seriously start questioning yourself to see if you are seeking the Truth or if you just go to church as a flavor of the day or to fit in with the crowd. TRADITIONS OF THE ELDER

So as you can see, the church is basing their doctrines on the teachings of men (traditions of the Elders). We should all live according to what the Scriptures teach us and not what men teach us! You can no see that the church has no regard for the Scriptures, and the believers in the Messiah should not in any way follow the teachings of any church!

(to be continued…)