Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 61
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
It is
of great interest to me that I share a similar appreciation for science as what
BJ speaks of in his intro to this chapter. This is one reason I find it so
grievous that he imagines science demanding a non-literal approach to the
history of the world beginning with creation and the evidence of a worldwide
flood. I put this on the table, that BJ will need to prove his science
contradicts the plain reading of Genesis as history. Everything I have read to
do with science keeps proving the evolutionary religion wrong and affirming the
Bible’s description of creation and the flood. BJ’s quest to steal the
glory of God as revealed through his miraculous work (Satan’s whole point in
everything he does) is grievous in his success with the “many”.
In
speaking of Jesus’ encounter with the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, BJ
laments that we do not have a clear revelation of what exactly Jesus told them
as he recounted how “the whole Bible” spoke about him (p. 126).
Could
we please put a marker on the path at this point?!
We have already seen that Jesus was honoring “the whole Bible”. He even chides the two disciples for being “so slow in your hearts to believe all the things the prophets said to you!” This is a clear message of affirming to these men the Scriptures they already had, the Jewish Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. When you put this marker in place and then watch for even one time in the whole of the New Testament that Jesus or any of the apostles correct the Jewish Scriptures you will find NONE! Even in the Jewish Scriptures, there is not one case of a later prophet correcting an earlier historian.
Fact is, the “marker”
of Luke 24:25-27 defies BJ’s claim that Jesus corrected anything about anything
in the Jewish Scriptures, that he treated anything historical as fiction, or that he affirmed BJ’s fabricated claim in a hybridized unreliable text where
fallible men misrepresented his Father. There is simply nothing to suggest that
BJ is right that the God of the Jewish Scriptures had to be corrected, or that
the prophecies about Jesus’ suffering and death by the will and purpose of God
was anything but the plan of God from before time began.
At the
same time, there are many people who have studied and/or specialized in
searching the Jewish Scriptures for the texts Jesus may have used on the Emmaus
Road to show how the Scriptures spoke of him. An online search brings up many
articles, videos, and books that give a good idea of what he would have shared.
In fact, I empathize with BJ’s longing to know what these passages would have
been, but see absolutely no reason to add the manmade idea that anything Jesus
spoke of was anything less than prophetic history.
In fact, it is possible that the reason Luke was not led by the Spirit to give us those details is because doing our own journey through those teachings would be as close to knowing what it was like for Jesus to show them to us as what those two disciples experienced with him (perhaps revealing our obtuseness at the same time). Whatever the case, there is still not one example of Jesus doing what BJ claims, correcting anything at all from the Old Testament Scriptures, particularly any of the claims that his Father, Yahweh, had temper tantrums!
Here is the back cover description of a book by Michael P.V. Barrett entitled, Beginning at Moses: A Guide to Finding Christ in the Old Testament. I have had this in my Kindle library long before I started down BJ’s garden path.
For many Christians today, the Old Testament is difficult to understand, seems outdated, and has questionable relevance. But, as Old Testament scholar Michael Barrett points out, all Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit and we must read it by faith, seeing that Christ is the key to unlocking the Old Testament's message. With great knowledge of and contagious passion for the Old Testament, the author shows readers how to identify basic characteristics of Christ and where to look for Him throughout the Old Testament. The author challenges us: "God's promise throughout the Bible is that those who seek Him will find Him. Beginning at Moses and ending with Malachi, we want to be on Christ alert."[1]
This is such a gift to place along BJ’s path of false teachings to show how an Old Testament scholar can treat the whole Bible as “inspired by God”, with all the words of Scripture breathed out by God through the original writers, and show how it is a cohesive whole in itself, but also gives ample suggestion as to what Jesus may have explained to those two Emmaus Road travelers.
And yet, by Jesus
denying us the exact words he spoke to them, we can all go searching and take
in everything we need to see for ourselves to give us the same effect of
teaching us how Jesus upheld the “whole counsel of God” without once stating
his disapproval or correction about any of it. As much as BJ wants to prove
that Jesus corrected some aspects of God’s nature, or some specific scriptures,
the Emmaus Road words of the Savior contradict that false claim completely.
However,
after letting us know how he felt about not being well-educated about these
things, BJ gets back into the ring with some fightin’ words.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“I was also aware that whatever unrecorded words Jesus relayed on the
road to Emmaus, they did not fit into the historical-grammatical-literal
approach (i.e., literalism) of my education. Frankly, I felt ripped off” (p.
126). |
First, uh… no… you were not “aware” as if it was revealed and you were
smart enough to notice it. This is the same stuff as what Nehemiah described
as “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out
of your own mind” (Nehemiah 6:8). Second, we are again receiving truth claims woven into experiences so
that we cannot say for sure if he was truly ripped off by his educators as he
testifies. We would need to know their side of the story. I’m sure there are
plenty of bad students who have slandered their good teachers for not doing a good
job! Third, as to the truth claim that whatever Jesus taught those two men did not fit into the “historical-grammatical-literal approach” which he now claims is what he meant by “literalism”, that is completely bogus. The Historical-Grammatical sense is nothing like his fabricated "literalism"! Let’s step
out of the ring for a minute to remind ourselves about the three approaches
we have been following. |
We
have already seen that the Historical-Grammatical sense (or approach) stands
between BJ’s non-literal “Literal Sense”, and his strawman of “Literalism”.
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BJ’s Literal Sense |
The Historical-Grammatical Sense |
BJ’s Literalism |
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Claims “literal” but means “tropological” (moral of the story), his
“different gospel” (from outside of the Scriptures), and “typological”
(allegorical), none of which mean "literal". |
The grammatical-historical method means reading the Bible in a plain
manner, respecting grammar, word meanings, and other factors with an emphasis
on context, Context, CONTEXT. |
BJ puts people here who ascribe to the plain meaning of Scripture as
if they are stifling the Holy Spirit and missing the point of the divine and
human authors.
|
I did a search of BJ's book to remind myself what he has said about the Historical-Grammatical sense. I found that he had already referred to the Historical-Grammatical-Literal approach in his strawman kind of way.
However, the table above stands as differentiating between the pendulum-extremes of what he claims of his literal approach (that is clearly not the least bit literal) and what he claims Literalism means (although I would love to hear the other side of the story from the people he has dissed for holding his perception of that view). Between the two is what the Historical-Grammatical sense really means. I have shown that, although he is dissing this approach and not giving it a fair reading in his book, the “literal” things he ascribes to his allegorical approach belong to the Historical-Grammatical sense, not his non-literal Literal Sense.
At the same time, I must clarify that everything is so
twisted regarding what he disses and what he claims for himself that I simply want to put
this front and center that his approach is not even close to rightly handling
the word of truth as Paul taught.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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In reference to his “former Calvinism” he concedes, “Somehow, they
felt free to preach the Old Testament stories as allegories of the gospel”
(p. 126). |
This is in reference to “types”. Types are not allegories, but real-life experiences in people that were pointing ahead to the greater experience
of the life of Christ. Noah was a real person with the real history described
in God’s Book, but he was also a type of Christ who would bring the much
greater salvation (along with the judgment of the lost that BJ keeps claiming
isn’t going to happen). Joseph was a real son of Jacob/Israel, he really did
rise to prominence in Egypt, he really did reunite with his family as he was
saving them from the famine, and his position as a “savior” figure is a type
of the greater Savior to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Moses was an absolutely
real person, his leadership in delivering Israel out of Egypt was real in
every way it is revealed, and he was also a type of the Christ who would come
and deliver God’s people out of the slavery of sin and into the Promised Land
of eternal life. The “types” in the Bible do NOT mean the original stories
were fictitious or allegorical. They just mean that they were showing in one
person’s temporal activities to save people what Jesus would do in a
spiritual and permanent way to save his sheep from sin, death, hell, and the
grave. BJ claims that Calvin preached “the Old Testament stories as
allegories of the gospel” and that he “did it best” (p. 126). However (once
again) he gave no evidence that Calvin did it at all so we are being expected
to take his word as the authority on the matter, something I have no reason
to do! Instead, I have questions. Does BJ mean that Calvin was amazing at showing the types from the Old Testament (real life people and events) and how they pointed to Christ? Or does he mean that John Calvin treated the Old Testament accounts as allegories that were illustrating the realities of what Jesus would accomplish? Or was Jesus’ work allegorical as well? I’m putting
this out here simply because I’m not seeing evidence that Calvin treated the
“types” as if they were allegories in themselves, something I know BJ needs
us to believe for him to promote his God/man hybrid of the Scriptures. Without
any evidence, I simply don’t buy BJ’s claims. |
A
Spending Time With God Interlude
The
title is mine. You won’t find it in the book. But on the morning after what I
wrote above (which is now slightly edited in my proofreading), I continued
having my morning time with God in Matthew 16. Again, I was fascinated by the
way Jesus’ own words contradicted what BJ has been claiming through his book.
Here is the passage I was meditating on:
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16)
Here
is how it lines up with BJ’s false teachings:
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Matthew 16:21-23 |
Compared to BJ |
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When Jesus said he “must” go to Jerusalem and suffer, die, and rise
from the dead, he was applying what the prophets said must happen. |
BJ has claimed that the prophets do not mean what they wrote about
Jesus’ suffering and death and claims that it was not the Father’s will to
send him into the suffering Isaiah describes. |
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Peter rebuked Jesus for saying something so contrary to his
understanding of what the Messiah would do when he came. |
BJ has rebuked Isaiah for describing the suffering, death, and
resurrection of the Messiah in such justice-satisfying ways as portrays God
the Father providing his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. |
|
Jesus responded by making the issue about Satan seeking to circumvent
the work of God in permanently atoning for the sins of his people so they
could be delivered out of the domain of darkness and transferred into the
kingdom of God’s beloved Son as saints and priests unto God Most High. |
BJ is responding to the clear teachings of Scripture with his “Did God
actually say…?” strategy of Satan to keep people from trusting what Scripture
says about Jesus’ justice-satisfying death for our sins. Although he is still
batting 0 in his handling of Scripture, his efforts to convince people to
believe something different than what is written is just as much Satan’s
masquerading as an angel of light as he masqueraded as a serpent in the
garden of Eden. |
|
What Peter was doing was joining Satan’s work of hindering Jesus from
going to the cross and fulfilling his Father’s will. To think that Jesus said
he “must” do something, but it was never the Father’s will to send him to the
cross, is a denial of so much clearly breathed-out words of Scripture! |
BJ is joining Satan’s work of hindering people from understanding that
“this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of
God” (Acts 2:23), “must” do his Father’s will as clearly as the prophets
revealed it. Jesus said it was his “food” to “do the will of him who sent
me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34). Everything Jesus did, including
going to the cross, was the will of his Father who sent him, and the work
Jesus would accomplish to his Father’s glory. |
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Peter’s problem was that he was joining Satan’s work by setting his
mind where Satan wanted him to set his mind, “on the things of man”. |
BJ’s problem is that he is joining Satan’s work by swinging from one
pendulum-extreme of “the things of man” (as his strawman version imagines) to
the other pendulum-extreme of “the things of man” which is his own
satanically-inspired mishandling of the Scriptures. In spite of his earlier claims that his methodology would remove the veil from people's eyes, Satan's work through this book is to blind people to the
glory of the finished work of Christ which “must” match in fulfillment what
was revealed in prophecy. |
Conclusion:
Reading this book for me has been like what happened with these
disciples. Jesus told them what the prophets said, that he “must” fulfill what
is written. This is what I came to this morning after reading that BJ is using
Luke 24 and the Emmaus Road experience to explain how Jesus corrected the
Jewish Scriptures when Jesus “began with Moses, and with ALL the prophets, and
explained to them the things about himself throughout the WHOLE Bible” (p.
126). When Jesus “from that time began to show his disciples that he MUST go to
Jerusalem” where he would suffer, die, and rise from the dead, it meant that he
continued to show them this in the days and weeks ahead. Because he had already taught them these things repeatedly, when he spoke
with the two disciples on the Emmaus Road he could gently and lovingly chide
them for not “getting it” that it was all exactly as the prophets had
prophesied. And this was without Jesus making even one correction to what Moses, the
prophets, and “the whole Bible” prophesied about this.
I
share this testimony of God speaking to me through his word this morning,
partly to show how specifically he addresses BJ’s false teachings, but also to
demonstrate that every believer can learn these things simply by meditating on
the Scriptures in the biblical way. Biblical meditation is in direct opposition
to BJ’s counterfeit of Contemplative Prayer because, instead of emptying one’s
mind to give Satan room to fill one’s thoughts, we give serious thought to what
we are reading, we talk with God about it as we are trying to understand it, we
set our minds on the Spirit instead of “the things of man”, we wrestle with the
most precise wording of Scripture because we want to understand the words God
breathed out, and we trust the Holy Spirit to teach us what every word from the
mouth of God really means so we can put it into practice in “the obedience of
faith”.
With
this puzzle piece added to the picture BJ’s garden path is calling us to
believe, let’s see where the author wants us to travel with him in his
pendulum-extreme look at the Sign of Jonah. However, it appears we are too
close to nightfall to continue today, so I will stop here and set up camp once
again, looking forward to a good night’s rest before shining God’s light on the
next leg of BJ’s garden path.
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems
[1]
I’m not sharing this to
endorse Amazon, but to show you a superior product to the book BJ wrote that I
had to purchase from Amazon to critique it! Beginning at Moses: A Guide to
Finding Christ in the Old Testament Kindle Edition. https://www.amazon.ca/Beginning-Moses-Finding-Christ-Testament-ebook/dp/B086H7H8JB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2QD4LP42Q0Y3A&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.c90mxiXIM1V8QCzMm5yCoA.lWy0mHqYan_kFG50i0yWlqz4m43J4s06nNC2AkgbAoM&dib_tag=se&keywords=%22Beginning+with+Moses%22+Barrett&qid=1721432807&sprefix=beginning+with+moses+barrett%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-1
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