A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 102 (Conclusion 7: Wrapping Up My Story)

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 102

“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)

The False Filter	The Biblical Filter
The word OR the Word	The Word THROUGH the word

   A Gift at the End to Begin my Conclusion

   What I am writing here comes after I had written most of what is in this conclusion. I wasn’t quite done, and I had not yet done my rereading and editing, when I began my time with God in Mark’s gospel. Today (the day of writing this) I read the first section of the gospel account and felt something: that Mark’s presentation of the gospel was moving FAST!!!

   What I mean is that Mark went from introducing his gospel with, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” to John the Baptist telling everyone that Jesus was on his way to baptize people with the Holy Spirit in only eight verses. It appears to be five sentences, and by the sixth, Jesus shows up!

   But what grabbed my attention was the Scripture he used to introduce us to the Savior.

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
    who will prepare your way,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight,’” (Mark 1:2-3)

And what stood out about this was considering how the grammar of the text affirms the authority of Scripture. Here is how the Expositor’s Bible Commentary explains this:

Mark cites the OT to show that any true understanding of the ministry of Jesus must be firmly grounded there. The verb translated “is written” (v. 2) is in the perfect tense. It denotes completed action in the past with continuing results. “It was written and still is” is the sense. The frequency with which this tense of the verb is used by the writers of the NT to introduce OT quotations underscores their strong belief in the unchanging authority of the Scriptures.[1]

   Immediately we see that this rebukes Brad Jersak’s claims that the Scriptures are not authoritative over God’s people as the word of God. It also contradicts Brad Jersak by declaring that “inspiration” happened in the “is written” part of the picture, not in the reading of Scripture. In other words, this confirms that the Hebrew Scriptures of Jesus’ day were considered already authoritative in themselves as written, not in every variation of interpretation that happened when people read the text.

   How does this apply to us today?

   Simply that we are to treat Brad Jersak as a false teacher because he attacks the very foundation of our faith, what “is written”. No matter what we believe about God, and Jesus, and the gospel, and no matter how clearly we understand that they are more important than the Bible, we only know about them through the Bible, the collection of what “is written”. Everything Brad Jersak presented from outside the Bible was to get us away from what “is written”.

   When we look at the context of the prophecy about John the Baptist, what do we find? We find God relating to his people in the most loving of ways:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
   Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
   that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
   that she has received from the LORD’s hand
   double for all her sins.
(Isaiah 40:1-2)

   This is what it looks like for God’s justice and mercy to work together in perfect harmony. Jerusalem (the people of God) will come to a time in their discipline when God will declare that justice has been served. She will have received the judgment she needed to break her heart and prepare her to come home.

   So what does Yahweh want his people to believe after they have refused to listen to him, have adulterated and prostituted themselves with other nations and other gods, have rejected the prophets God has sent to them, and have been disciplined according to God’s loving hand of justice?

   God wants them to be ready for his comfort. They need to see their God as the Father who longs to speak gently and tenderly to his children (think of Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem because they would not let him gather them to himself like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings). When judgment has done its work, mercy will rise in triumph over all that the world, the flesh, and the devil have conspired to steal, to kill, and to destroy, and bring God’s people home to the heart of their Father as illustrated in the parable of the lost Son.

   So when we come to the specific prophecy fulfilled by John the Baptist, we read:

A voice cries:
    “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
   make straight in the desert a highway for our God”
 (Isaiah 40:4)

   Right away we see that the prophecy was about preparing the way of Yahweh (the LORD), and this is applied to Jesus as the one it is talking about. Jersak keeps trying to separate Yahweh and Yasous (Jesus) as though Jesus had to correct the revelation of Yahweh in the Hebrew Scriptures. But here we see Mark declaring what “is written” as authoritative because it was breathed out by God, and you can’t get a closer association between Yahweh and Yasous than a prophecy made about Yahweh and fulfilled by Yasous! And for both it is clear that this is “our God”, which is why Thomas finally confessed, “My Lord, and my God!” when, as a Jewish man, he would have only confessed Yahweh as “my God”.

Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
        the uneven ground shall become level,
      and the rough places a plain.
(Isaiah 40:4)

   This pictures what John the Baptist was doing. It also gives us a very precise commentary on what it looks like to have a figure of speech like these metaphors applied to what really happened with Jesus. All these things happened in the lives of people who heard the gospel of the kingdom and came to Christ in repentance and faith. But it again affirms that there is never a discrepancy between what a metaphor describes and how it applies. They are always equal in what they describe.

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
   and all flesh shall see it together,
      for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
(Isaiah 40:5)

   What the prophecy said was that the glory of Yahweh would be revealed in the coming of Jesus Christ. Mark says that what was happening in John the Baptist calling people to Jesus was this prophecy. John wrote in the preface to his gospel account, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). This is what it means that “the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed”. Jesus was showing what the Yahweh of the Old Testament was like in his glory. Not correcting him, but glorifying him!

   And then there is that glorious conclusion, “for the mouth of YAHWEH has spoken”! Everything that was happening in Jesus’ ministry was what Yahweh had spoken in the prophets. None of it was corrected. Jesus affirmed all the Scriptures of the Hebrew Bible. It is the exact opposite of what Brad Jersak claims, and the Scriptures are full of these connections where the Son is the same as the Father because he is the radiance of the Father’s glory.

   Choose You This Day…

   This is the obvious choice: everyone who reads Brad Jersak’s books must choose between what Brad Jersak says about Scripture or what Scripture says about Brad Jersak. Jersak calls Scripture a “God/Man hybrid”, while Scripture calls Scripture “the word of God” (along with its fellowship of synonyms). If you’ve read Jersak’s book to the end, perhaps even wandered down the three phases of his garden path, you already know what he claims about Scripture. I will not say more about that. It is enough that he has dissed Scripture, dissed Yahweh, and even dissed Jesus as revealed in Scripture (he is only fine with his “another Jesus”).

   “But what does Scripture say about Brad Jersak,” you ask?

   I would be happy (and sad) to tell you!

1.     Scripture calls Brad Jersak a “false prophet”. He is claiming a prophetic role (telling people what “more Christlike” looks like), and he is false, saying things that just ain’t so. If he lived during Moses’ time, “the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die’” (Deuteronomy 18:20). Jeremiah adds, “And the LORD said to me: ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds’” (Jeremiah 14:14). Jesus warned about this as well, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep 's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). There are more such references, but because Brad Jersak is proclaiming his own version of God, his word, and his Way, he is a false prophet.

2.    Scripture calls Brad Jersak a “Scoffer”. As the Apostle Peter begins his second letter, giving reminders to the believers for their encouragement, he says, “that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (3:2). This ties together the prophets of the Old Testament with the apostles of the New. It also indicates that what we have “through your apostles” is “the commandment of the Lord and Savior”. So Peter gives this reminder, “knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires” (3:3). This has been one of the marks of Brad Jersak’s writing, to scoff at the idea of Yahweh judging criminal nations, to scoff at the teaching of Scripture regarding creation, the fall into sin, the worldwide flood, and the Father’s sovereignty in presenting his Son as the propitiation for our sins. As Peter reminds us of these things through Scripture, we must remind one another as well not to follow anyone who scoffs and mocks (disses) Scripture as God’s word about everything that is written in the Bible.

3.    Scripture says that Brad Jersak does not have God, at least in his trilogy of poison-in-the-pudding fairy tales. The apostle John wrote, “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 1:9). Jersak has made clear even in the three titles of his trilogy that he “goes on ahead” of what is written, he “does not abide in the teaching of Christ” as God breathed out into his word, and so “does not have God” in his teaching. He has simply made too many manmade changes to God’s words for anyone to imagine that God is with him in his deviations from truth.

4.    Scripture says that Brad Jersak is a liar. The apostle John wrote, “I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). The early Christians did know the truth as we now have it collected into the New Testament Scriptures. John makes clear that if someone presents lies, they cannot be “of the truth”. But he continues, “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (vs 22). We often think of this as the extreme examples of people outright denying everything about Jesus. But John’s focus is on someone who “denies that Jesus is the Christ”. What did “the Christ” mean to him? Everything the Hebrew Scriptures said about him! And Brad Jersak has sought to dismantle the teachings of the Scriptures about the Christ in order to present his “another Jesus” who is not the Christ. It doesn’t work to include the words “Jesus” and “Christ” if what we mean by both is “another Jesus” from the one revealed in the Scriptures.

5.    Scripture says that Brad Jersak is a teacher of “a different gospel”. In Galatians 1, Paul was “astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (vs 6), but then clarifies, “not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (vs 7). Brad Jersak is clearly distorting the true gospel and presenting a different one.

6.    Scripture says that Brad Jersak is “accursed”, or “anathema”. Paul continued with the Galatians, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (vs 8). And then adds, “As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (vs 9). Even in the titles of Brad Jersak’s books, he admits that he is adding “more” to what is in Scripture. All through this volume of his trilogy I kept seeing this, that he was saying things we were supposed to believe that had their source outside of Scripture.

7.    Scripture says that Brad Jersak is one of those “evil people and imposters” who lead people astray. Paul told Timothy, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:12-13). Paul himself said that “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true” (II Corinthians 6:8), while “evil people and imposters” would be received as genuine. I’m simply stating what Scripture says about Brad Jersak, that it is “evil people and imposters” who go around “deceiving” others because they are “being deceived” by whatever ground they have surrendered to the evil one.

8.    I will close this section with the Scripture that has been opening my posts for the later part of my journey down Brad Jersak’s garden path. This calls out the author as someone who “proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed… a different spirit from the one you received… a different gospel from the one you accepted” (2 Corinthians 11:4). Just think if he had used those words instead of “more Christlike”! What if he simply titled his books, “A Different God”, “A Different Word”, and “A Different Way”. At least he would have been honest about his dishonesty!!!

   As I said introducing this conclusion, we are making a choice whether to believe Brad Jersak’s claims about the Scriptures or the Scripture’s claims about him. Jesus and the apostles did warn that “many” would choose the false teachers, but I share this in the hope that someone reading this hadn’t thought about that and might realize that it is impossible to follow the true Lord Jesus Christ and a false teacher’s “another Jesus” at the same time.

   Joshua’s Exemplary Choice

   Yes, I deliberately began this conclusion with a phrase that many church folk would recall came to us through Joshua. The “choose you this day” expression was part of his call to Israel to resist the temptations of the idols of the lands they were reclaiming and walk faithfully with Yahweh, the only true God. Here is how he called the people to trust and serve Yahweh (the LORD) in Joshua 24:14-15.

   First Joshua exhorted the people, “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.” Please note that this is NOT where Joshua is asking them to “choose this day”. Why not? Because that choice had already been made!!! The previous books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy had left a very clear testimony of Israel already agreeing to the terms of the first covenant. That choice had already been made at Mount Horeb.

   The parallel to this in reference to Brad Jersak is that many of his readers have already professed to be participants in the new covenant in Jesus’ blood. If you are a reader who had once believed the Bible to be the word of God, you believed that Yahweh revealed in the Old Testament was perfectly just and good, and you believed that God gave his Son to be the propitiation (atoning sacrifice) for our sins, you would be at about the same place in the new covenant as Israel was in the old. Your choice was already made. You simply needed to be reminded of your agreement.

   It just so happens that my “On This Day” sharing this morning was based on what we call the Great Commission. Every “Christian” should have submitted to all three parts of this commission, both in receiving it for ourselves, and in living it out towards others. We should be a “disciple” of the Lord Jesus Christ; we should be baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (one name for the three persons of the Godhead), and we should have agreed to learn to obey Jesus in everything he has given us in his word. That is our response to the new covenant that is parallel to what Joshua was reminding the Israelites they had already done in relation to the old covenant. It gives us some sense of what Joshua was reminding the people about.

   Second, after affirming what Israel had already done, Joshua presents a conflicting challenge, “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.” Joshua was telling the people, if it turns out that they find it offensive to continue following Yahweh, then at least have the guts to identify who it is they are serving. If they are giving up on Yahweh, which idols of the pagan nations have done for them what Yahweh did to bring them into the Promised Land?!

   The parallel to the followers of Brad Jersak should be obvious. He has made it appear “evil in your eyes to serve Yahweh”. Yes, he has declared the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures to be “evil in your eyes”. He has accused him of being violent and vindictive (not the same as Yahweh’s “vengeance”). He has accused Yahweh of being unjust in putting to death people who did not deserve such a just sentence against them. Yes, I have read this book for myself and it was there woven through every chapter. The author believes that Yahweh as revealed in the Scriptures that were breathed out by God was not “Christlike” enough!

   So, if you have been convinced that Jersak is right and the Scriptures are wrong, that Jersak is right and Jesus and the apostles are wrong, then “choose this day whom you will serve”!

   Third, Joshua continues to leave us with a testimony to follow: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua had no control over what the people would do after his death. All he could leave was a legacy of faith, that he would never turn from Yahweh to serve idols. He would never accuse Yahweh of doing anything evil (and this includes during the history that Jersak claims God did evil).

   Joshua’s testimony still stands, and it stands against the claims of Brad Jersak and his kin who present themselves as the authorities over Scripture instead of treating Scripture as the “word of God” that has authority over us.

   A Double-Dose Denunciation

   It is fitting that on this last post regarding this book God has once again given me what to share to wrap things up. It is a testimony of how God has spoken to me through his word this morning (on the day of adding this to my notes), and how it directly denounces two of Jersak’s main points, that Jesus did not die as our substitute bearing God’s judgment against our sins, and that God’s word is not God’s word.

   I began this Sunday morning facing the following text:

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” (Matthew 27:15-23)

   The first thing I saw in this was how Jesus experienced things I have been through. I have been the scapegoat chosen while a “notorious” person got off scot-free, as they say. I have been “delivered up” by people who “envied” that I was leading people to love God and his word while they wanted to be in control of the church for their own purposes. I have fallen prey to religious hypocrites “persuading” the crowd (congregation) to “acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!” (Isaiah 5:23) just as the elitists wanted a criminal to go free so they could “destroy” Jesus. And I have experienced the “crucify him” mentality of a church mob demanding a guilty verdict without evidence or trial.

   Yes, that could sound like a sob story inviting a pity party, but that’s not my intent. I was simply so surprised that God would begin this morning by showing me some ways in which Jesus suffered MY story far beyond what I had ever considered. I had long related to him as one who “was despised and rejected by men,” and was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). To know he came into the world to experience and feel things that I myself had gone through has stirred up many expressions of worship and thanks to God.

   I also marveled at how clearly Isaiah 53 spoke of the ways Jesus would suffer in my place (I have spoken of these already). But I had never seen this one paragraph shining the spotlight on center stage where Jesus endured one thing after another than was far more familiar than I wish.

   And my point is that he was there as my substitute. He was bearing my griefs and carrying my sorrows. He was pierced for my transgressions. he was crushed for my iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought me peace with God, and with his wounds I am healed of all my sins. I know full well that like a sheep I had gone astray. I know that I was with everyone else in turning to my own way. And I know that “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

   But never have I considered that Jesus experienced all these other things as my substitute before he even went to his flogging or to his crucifixion. And to see this today filled my heart with worship that God would do this for me then, and show it to me now.

   Three Mentors of a Better Way

   I have not tackled Brad Jersak’s false teachings because I like to be negative. There are some positive books I am waiting to read now that I am done this garden path of poison-in-the-pudding teachings (yes, I’m having fun with the mixture of metaphors). I believe that the verse from Paul at the beginning of these posts is what the BJs are doing, and I think that this statement is a fitting summary:

The purpose of the BJs’ writings is to demoralize people’s faith in the authority of Scripture as the breathed-out words of God. They continue the serpent’s question in the garden, “Did God actually say…?” to replace what God said with what the “evil people and imposters” are peddling for unjust gain.

   But now I will share the three mentors God used to teach me a better way than the Bible-dissing mindset Brad Jersak has shared.

   Mentor 1: Turning Life Inside Out

   My first mentor was in the form of a book by Larry Crabb entitled, “Inside Out”. His theme revolved around the way God always begins with the heart and works outward, and how that clashes with people who want to keep everything external and decide how much anyone (including God) gets any deeper.

   One of the main points that stood out to me was his claim (prophetic) that church folk would be more committed to self-protection than to knowing and doing the will of God. I had not heard of self-protection before, and I was in a small, friendly, welcoming church, so I did not recognize what he was talking about.

   However, close to 35 years later, I can say that I have seen exactly what he claimed. The biggest thing that has kept Christians from growing up in Christ is their self-protection. They simply don’t want God to deal with them at a heart level. This, of course, makes it very difficult for men to “keep watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account”, when people want churches to operate without anyone knowing how their souls are doing!

   How does that relate to what I have read in Brad Jersak’s book? That the reason so many church folk are finding it difficult to attach to God’s word as God’s word is because they don’t want God doing anything with them. They don’t want his word speaking to them about childhood trauma, disappointing marriages, fear-based relationships, or the expectation that they will know and do the will of God. Because whole churches can be built on the altar of self-protection, many people in churches are missing out on a deep-hearted walk with God because they have put limits on how much he can do through his word. This makes fertile ground for someone to present “another Jesus” who has no such expectations.

   Mentor 2: An Introduction to Experiencing God

   Approximately a year after Larry Crabb’s tutelage, my wife and I went to a Pastors’ and Wives’ Retreat where the speaker was Henry Blackaby. I had only ever heard one other man treat Scripture with such respect. For the few days we were all together, he showed a picture of how God spoke to his people, how he showed them his work, and how they could only experience him when they joined him in what he was doing.

   After this retreat I purchased Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God course to continue being mentored. I was intrigued that the subtitle was, “knowing and doing the will of God” because Larry Crabb’s mentoring had warned me that this is the exact thing that church folk do not want to know and do!

   The short of it was that by the time I completed the course, I was so in love with God’s word (You know, like those love-letters from my girlfriend I had talked about in an earlier chapter, not Jersak’s claim that to love God’s word means loving the Bible more than him). Anyway, I was relating to God’s word like he was speaking to me, I was seeing things standing out every day that applied to things it seemed like he was doing in my life, and I was elated to be getting to know God through his word like I had never experienced before.

   And then it hit. Horrible and painful things came up on both sides of our family. I was shattered by a journey into grief that left me reeling. Except for one thing. The next day after the first news hit, I went and had my time with God in his word, something stood out that amazed me in its application to that moment in my life, I talked with Father about it like it was where he wanted my focus, and I felt his comfort and encouragement. When the second foot came down (figuratively speaking), it was still happening. No matter how much pain I felt, whatever I was reading turned into a ministry from my Father that felt like the ink was still wet on the Scriptures that were before me.

   Through those years of agonizing heartache and bewildering discoveries, I not only learned how broken church folk can be, but I was learning to “know and do the will of God” by attaching to God through his word. It is why I have often quoted Romans 10:17 in my journey through this book, and so much other sharing I do online, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Simply by hearing Scripture as “the word of Christ”, God was building my faith based on “hearing” no matter what I was (or was not) “seeing” around me.

   In 32 years since that first ministry from Henry Blackaby, I have grown to have such a deep attachment to the Scriptures as the word of God that it has been a horrible grief to watch someone like Brad Jersak make so much money off of dissing the word of God, the Word of God, and the God of the word/Word.

   However, I would still urge people to utterly reject the lies Jersak has published and learn how to read Scripture like God is talking to us. Just read it. Listen to it. Whatever stands out, talk to Father about it. Be honest. Let it be a two-way dialogue where you say how you think and feel to God, but then you meditate on the words he is saying to you like you are letting him get his side of the conversation in. It is amazing to relate to God like that, and God used some of the most painful years of my life to teach me to love his word like that.

   This mentoring turned into asking and answering three questions in my time with God in his word. First, “What is God saying?” Second, “What is God doing?” Third, “How do I join God in his work?” I would happily elaborate, but for now, I’m simply leaving a testimony against Brad Jersak’s poison-in-the-pudding that a daily time with God in his word where we pour out our hearts to him, and receive into our hearts whatever he is saying through his word, causes us to see the whole Bible as the word of God and to stand against people who join the serpent’s “Did God actually say…?” and “steal, kill, and destroy” their reverence and awe for the words of God. Thanks to God’s ministry through Larry Crabb and Henry Blackaby, I have learned what it means “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). And whenever I do feel that trembling at the word of God (the whole Bible) I know Father is totally aware of what is going on with me. How I wish the same would be true for you!

   Mentor 3: A Discovery of Freedom in Christ

   With a mind watching for the notorious evidence of self-protection turning our church from knowing and doing the will of God, and a heart filled with bittersweet experiences of experiencing God as I learned to know and do his will, a year after Henry Blackaby spoke at the Pastors’ and Wives’ retreat, we met Neil Anderson and heard of his Freedom in Christ ministry.

   And guess what? It was in the early stages of the world-upside-downness I was telling you about where God had pierced us all the way through our self-protection, shown me how we could experience him in the midst of it, and primed me to learn how good church folk who had carried on an outwards role of ministry for years could be so messed up inside (I’m talking about me here!).

   The bottom line is that, through Neil Anderson’s books and a few days at that retreat I could see the connection between Jesus declaring the time fulfilled for him “to proclaim good news to the poor… liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19), and what I was discovering under the layers of self-protection in me, my family, and my church.

   In other words, that was my first introduction to both the world of messed-upness in church people and the word of freedom in Christ in the Bible. Jesus came to set people free. Why had I never heard it that way? Why had I never been told that this applies to childhood trauma, abuse, eating disorders, addictions, hopelessness, depression, and whatever other debilitating labels are in people’s hearts but never spoken of in church? And why were the most self-protective people in charge of the core groups of churches?!

   Well, I have answered a lot of my questions in the past three decades. Everything has solidified my understanding that churches need to continue telling people that Jesus came to set them free. It should be normal for people to admit to things going on inside them and receive ministry from the body of Christ that would express Jesus healing the brokenhearted and binding up their wounds. At the very least, it’s something on my mind no matter who I am talking with, and I love that God’s word speaks of these things so clearly so that every hurting and broken child of God can know there is hope.

   I would also apply this focus on Freedom in Christ to Brad Jersak’s garden path by stating that this is another reason so many people are having difficulty attaching to Scripture as God’s word. It is because so many churches do not relate to people at the level of their “souls”. In fact, pastors get fired if they try to watch over the souls of their core group who have kept the church going playing good-Christian external roles!

   And if my time at Bible college was any indication of other Christian educational institutions, the majority of students in my school were in need of MINISTRY for themselves, NOT to be sent into the battlefield (and minefield) of ministry to care for the souls of others who would fight them tooth and nail to not let anyone find out who they really were, or what they were really like.

   It is especially notable that, when Jesus announced that the Scripture he had just read in the synagogue of Nazareth was fulfilled right then and there in their hearing, he was reading from Isaiah 61, again affirming the prophet who had written so much about his Father! We can take to heart that Jesus is still setting people free because his word so clearly says so!

   Mentored by a Cord of Three Strands

   When I look back at those three or four years and how God not only used those three particular men, but in that particular order, and how it all was like puzzle pieces fitting whatever God was speaking me about from his word each day, I not only feel myself to be supremely mentored, but also supremely angry at the lies Brad Jersak has told about God and his word. The thought of how many people have been turned from experiencing God through his word and by his Spirit by peddlers of God’s word who diss the Scriptures so people never find their treasures is grievous to me.

   I was at some friends’ wedding when it first stood out to me, “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Or, as I likely heard it in the NIV, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). That is the imagery I have with these three mentors, that God gave me a three-stranded cord to hold on to as I traveled some of the most painful years of my life. It settled that I did not want to sacrifice anyone on the altar of my self-protection, that I did want God to work on me from the inside out, that I wanted to truly experience God by knowing and doing his will, and I wanted to address anything in my life that required freedom in Christ so nothing would be holding me back from growing up in my Savior.

   My point is not to present three mentors with their sets of resources for you to replace the three musketeers of the BJs (“three” being a relatively figurative word). Rather, to give you background to how God led me to love his word as his word because what I want is to see people return to the word of God and treat it like Jesus’ authority over his church until his return.

   When the “word of men” is “the word of God”

   A Scripture that captures what I have been sharing is this from 1 Thessalonians 2:13:

"And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers."

   First, this is how I want you to view what I just shared as a testimony regarding my mentors. I do not want you to focus on “the word of men”, although God always uses men to proclaim his word. Rather, I want you to be encouraged to get into “the word of God” the way these men taught me.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

   Yes, that is the BIBLE as “the word of God”. The Scriptures. The written word. It is NOT talking about Jesus as “the Word”. It is speaking of the Scriptures that both Paul and Peter wanted the believers to treat as “the word of God”. And how wonderful if anyone reading this would throw Jersak’s books in the trash and fall in love with the “word of God” that builds our faith to attach to the living God.

   Second, Paul was being so clear that “the word of God” means what was preached and proclaimed by the apostles which was the mix between “the gospel of the kingdom” woven through with the Old Testament Scriptures that spoke of Jesus and his kingdom. All through Acts we see the word of God including the Hebrew Scriptures about Jesus and the message about Jesus that was presenting the new covenant in his blood.

   Paul knows that what he and the other apostles were teaching was “the word of men” in one sense, since it was coming through their mouths, words, and writings. But he was so thankful that the Thessalonians could recognize that there was no way these were merely “the word of men”. This is actually attested with the early history of the New Testament Scriptures where the church recognized these letters were not “the word of men”, but “what it really is, the word of God”.

   I say this because it is so clear that Satan is working through the BJs to steal, kill, and destroy people’s faith in the word of God. Why? Because faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes from the word of Christ. So, if people stop attaching to the word of Christ (the Scriptures we now have in the Bible), they will never grow in their faith.

   Third, I would add my testimony to what Paul said here because the more I have treated the Scriptures as “the word of God”, and the more I have trembled before God’s words like they are living and active, and they are able to pierce between my soul and spirit so that I dare not argue with anything my Father in heaven says I should be dealing with, the more I can say that God’s word “is at work in me” as a believer.

   When Not Believing Moses Means Not Believing Christ (the real one)

   What I just said about Paul was a positive picture of how to see the word of God, the Scriptures we have in the Bible. But Jesus spoke a similar thing in the negative as a warning regarding how we treat the Old Testament. In John 5:46–47, Jesus said, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

   Notice again that Jesus ONLY speaks of Moses in the positive. He ONLY speaks of Moses as someone whose five books were Scripture. There is not one correction of Moses. NOT… ONE!!!

   So we have the real Lord Jesus Christ in the real words of Scripture telling us what to think of the words of Scripture we call the books of Moses. And Jesus says that if we do not believe Moses, we have no basis for believing Jesus’ words. That is how connected Scripture is. If we won’t believe what is written in the Hebrew Scriptures, how will we believe what Jesus said and the apostles wrote in the New Testament Scriptures?

   Do you see how we could end up with charlatans like Brad and his kin making big bucks peddling God’s word in twisted and distorted ways? All they need to do is get people to not believe Moses. Then they can even question what Jesus and the apostles said! And before we know it, people are taking the words of men to be more authoritative than the word of God!

   I mean, think about it: Brad Jersak disses creation, which is described in the books of Moses. He disses the fall into sin, which is written in the books of Moses. He disses the worldwide flood, which is described as a worldwide flood in the books of Moses. Do you see why he can’t believe Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament Scriptures? Jesus says it is because Brad does not believe Moses’ writings! Yes, WRITINGS! You know, SCRIPTURE.

   And this means that Jesus explains why Brad Jersak would publicly twist what it means that “All Scripture is breathed out by God” from what God said it means, that the writings of Moses are Scripture, to what a mere man means, that the writings of Moses are a “God/man” hybrid that is not what God intended to say. Jesus clearly tells us that what the Jewish people had in the Scriptures, in what they called the books of Moses, were so authoritative that if people would not believe Moses, they would not believe Christ, which is exactly what Brad Jersak has proven.  

   Wrapping Up My Story (in a rapping-fingers kind of way)

   This 102 day “Journal Journey” isn’t about whether BJ has made his case (he hasn’t). The popularity of teachers who present “another Jesus” a “different spirit” and “a different gospel” is nothing new. Jesus and the apostles warned us it would happen. People were saying false things about Jesus when he was alive, and have been saying false things about him ever since. My writing of this extensive critique of the book is to add my voice to the “few” and call them to remain true to the narrow way, trusting in the word of God as we now have it gathered into the Bible.

   One of the most liberating things I learned about sharing Christ with others is what Jesus himself said about what was happening in the spiritual realm when we proclaim the good news of the kingdom. He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). What I realized is that when we teach people from the word of God (the Bible), when we proclaim the gospel of the kingdom over the airwaves, or into cyberspace, or around the kitchen table, or over the fence with a neighbor, or on the street with someone we just met, if we speak about Jesus directly from the Scriptures, that is Jesus’ voice. And as long as we keep it there, trying to show people what the word of God says about the Word of God, we will know we have found a lost sheep when they “hear what the Spirit is saying” to them.

   I also want to put on the table that I have been hearing the Bible since I was a child. I have been reading the Bible since my teens. I have been studying the Bible since my early twenties. I have been relating to the Bible like God is speaking to me since my mid-thirties. And my personal conclusion is that there is a cohesive message that is like a tapestry of truth that only God could weave. While I have come to conclusions that fit under various labels of doctrine, my focus is on what is written in God’s word. I am often quite insecure about whether a doctrinal statement is worded as precisely and comprehensively as needed. But I am never insecure about meditating on the words of Scripture in a real translation, looking up words to ascertain their clearest meaning, and then striving to put those words into practice as the words my Savior has spoken into my soul.

   On the other hand, Brad Jersak has used his book to tell his story of how he moved away from the trustworthiness of the Scriptures into the adoption of his partnership model that says the Bible is nothing better than a God/man hybrid that we can only understand properly when we read it and the Spirit “inspires” us with its true meaning. We have already seen that whatever “different spirit” BJ has relied on has given him “another Jesus” and “a different gospel” than what is written. Anyone who believes this author is submitting to BJ’s authority instead of the authority of the Scriptures.

   Yes, we cannot escape that we are confessing someone to be the authority. If we believe Brad Jersak, we are making him a greater authority than the apostles who lived with Jesus, who were witnesses to his resurrection, or, like Paul, was personally chosen for the glory of God to declare the gospel of the kingdom to the Gentiles.

   The Injustice of Misunderstanding Yahweh

   While I have witnessed Brad Jersak cherry-picking parts of Scriptures out of context to make his points, I have been able to read so many Scriptures in their contexts as outright rebukes to his false teachings. I am sure I have shared this in my rebuttals already, but as this is my last and most personal conclusion, I will share what makes so much difference to me.

   In Proverbs 28:5, God’s word says,

Evil men do not understand justice,
    but those who seek the LORD (Yahweh)
understand it completely.

   This says that if someone does “not understand justice” it is because of what is in their hearts. No, I don’t mean the everyday church person who feels mind-boggled when they think about God’s justice against sin, his judging of his Son on our behalf, and the justification of all those who trust in Jesus. I’m talking about people like Brad Jersak who will write trilogies of books showing that they do not understand God’s justice in any way and are quite determined to misrepresent what Scripture says about it. The proverb states why such teachers cannot understand God’s justice. It is because something has gripped their hearts with what is evil and so they are drawn to diss God’s justice to a watching, listening, and reading world.

   Note: if it sounds harsh to suggest that Brad Jersak could be speaking out of an evil source, don’t forget that David was tricked by Satan to number Israel, Peter was speaking for Satan when he tried to stop Jesus from going to the cross, Ananias and Sapphira were condemned for letting Satan lead them to lie to the Holy Spirit, Simon the ex-sorcerer was overcome by the evils of his old ways to try purchasing apostolic authority, and we are warned about the wisdom from below that “is earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:15)

   On the other hand, the proverbs says that it is those who seek Yahweh (the LORD) who understand justice completely. In the same way as those who reject Moses (as revealed in Scripture) cannot understand Jesus, those who reject the Yahweh of the Scriptures cannot understand justice. It is those who trust in Yahweh as revealed in the Scriptures, and trust his Son who affirms the Scriptures that speak of his Father, who come to understand justice. And it is to the glory of God’s justice that we rejoice in what God did for us on the cross by satisfying his justice against our sins by making Jesus to be sin on our behalf so we could become the righteousness of God in him. Yes, the beauty that is in the words of Scripture (the breathed-out words of God) is what gives us our hope.

   A Warning to Pay Attention

   As I have shared a few times, the book of Hebrews is a beautiful demonstration of Scripture affirming Scripture. It gives us a very good picture of the kinds of things Jesus would have taught the two men on the road to Emmaus about how Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms all spoke of him. Here is one of its callings to hold fast to Scripture instead of the whims and wishes of men:

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:1-4)

   Let’s look at this thought by thought because it is exactly what every reader of Brad Jersak’s false teachings needs to take to heart from Scripture.

   “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Yes, because Brad Jersak and his kin are pulling people away from what “we have heard” in the Scriptures, we must pay “much closer attention” to what is written because the BJs are determined to make people “drift away from it”!

   “For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” All through Hebrews there is a picture of Jesus’ supremacy over everything, including angels. So this is a strong contrast the writer is making to show that what was already given “proved to be reliable”. That is the New Testament declaring that what was given to us in the mosaic law was given by angels (see Galatians 3:19) and its reliability was without question. How dishonest of Brad Jersak to claim otherwise!

   And the warning about neglecting “such a great salvation” means the salvation taught in the Scriptures! And THAT is the salvation Brad Jersak wants people to neglect by him turning the spotlight to himself as the authority on what Jesus did and which parts of the Bible can be trusted. According to Hebrews, the books of Moses tell the truth about God’s law, and those Scriptures “proved to be reliable”, not some God/man hybrid that cannot be trusted. This is so glaring in condemning Brad Jersak that no true Christian should be listening to him!

   “It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” This weaves together how this “such a great salvation” was presented to us by Christ (not by angels), but it was then “attested… by those who heard”, meaning the apostles, and confirmed by all the miraculous things God did as recorded in the book of Acts. It all is a glorious testimony to how God gave us his word so that we could know what it means that we have “such a great salvation”. Brad Jersak was sent to steal, kill, and destroy people’s attachment to that salvation, but the writer of Hebrews calls us to “pay much closer attention to what we have heard” in the Scriptures “lest we drift away from it.” And that is what I hope my rebuttals and response encourage in you who are reading this.

   A Proposal For Us Everyday Christians

   I would like to add something to the mix that is aimed at what I think of as us common folk in the church. We’re the ones who really don’t have time to do indepth studies of the church fathers, check out Hebrew and Greek definitions (let alone learn the languages at the level of fluency in communication!), or dissect the Bible for which parts fit every possible genre of language and literature.

   What can we do instead?

   We can READ THE BIBLE!

   Yes, the thing I would add to this garden path journey through BJ’s “another Jesus”, “different spirit”, and “different gospel”, is a way to read the Bible and test it for ourselves.

   What I propose for you, the reader, is that you would begin a daily journey through God’s word, the Bible, where you open the word to where you left off the day before and ask God to speak to you through whatever you read that day.

   The point of our eternal life was stated by Jesus as, “that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). This makes the goal of Bible study to get to know God better than we have ever known him before. That is what it will be like in eternity, so we best get used to doing this now!

   When we read the Bible as the word of God, and we treat it like he is speaking to us, and we trust that the Holy Spirit is our Helper who “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26), we can focus on whatever stands out to us each time we spend time with God in his word as something God is using to grow us up in Christ.

   Because I am holding to what the Bible says about the inspiration of Scripture as happening between God and the written text, and I denounce Brad Jersak’s false teaching that inspiration is what happens when we read the text, if we are using a good translation of the Scriptures, we need to focus on understanding the text as it sits in its context. In other words, we want to do our best to make sure we are letting God’s word speak for itself. We can then consider what it says with a desire to know the truth on the matter. We can seek to understand what it means, also consistent with all the rest of Scripture. And we can be honest about how God wants us to apply his word to our lives, putting into practice the whole counsel of God.

   As I said earlier, my daily quest is to be able to answer what God is speaking to me about, what I see him doing, and how I am joining him in his work. I might not fill in the blanks on the second and third parts of that every day, but I always know what his word is speaking to me about, and it makes me attentive to put myself in God’s hands so he can show me the rest.

   I believe that if we seek to abide in Christ through his word like that (“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you” (John 15:7), it will be much easier to recognize when someone is speaking into our lives as if they are an authority over “my words”, the words of our Savior as collected into Scripture. We will also see how the authority of Scripture speaks for itself, and we will feel a radical different in us when we receive the word of God as our Father speaking to his children, our Master speaking to his servants, and our Shepherd speaking to his sheep. However we see it, God is speaking through his word, and we are the ones who listen for every word that comes from the mouth of God so we can live by those words and put them into practice.

   The Old-as-Sin Model of Craftiness

   I can make this assessment because I have read the book. I felt what happened to me as I listened for validations of points the author was making. At first, it was just the awareness that what I was reading started to sound familiar. After some time, I realized why: it is the way Satan deceived Eve and lured Adam into sin!

   In Genesis 3 we read “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made” (vs 1). There has been no shortage of serpent-like craftiness ever since.

   Satan used a three-step approach to lead Adam and Eve into sin:

1.     “He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?’” (vs 1). I realized Brad Jersak was using this approach with every Scripture he presented. It always had that sense of “Did God actually say?” what was written. And then the author would expect us to believe what he said instead!

2.    After Eve gave her paraphrase of what God actually said (which was a bit off from what God actually said, by the way), “the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die’” (vs 4). From questioning whether God really did say something, the crafty deceiver then made an outright lie against what God said, denying that what God said was true. This is what Brad Jersak has done throughout the book as well, stating that what God’s word says about the judgment to come won’t really happen. Much of the book was the author telling us why “the plain reading” of Scripture isn’t true. I just put this out there that instead of thinking he is brilliant for seeing things beyond the plain reading of Scripture, I want everyone to see that this is the way Satan has been luring people into sin ever since his first success!

3.    And then the serpent added, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (vs 5). After an outright denial of what God said, the serpent declares the opposite, acting like an authority over the words of God. That is very obviously what Brad Jersak is doing as well, making himself the authority who can say that people will experience an outcome quite different from what God describes in his word.

   I must admit, I am finding it difficult to quit this conclusion (you likely noticed that). Even though I don’t know anyone who might be reading this (though I hope my friends are secretly doing so), I can definitely attach to what Paul wrote when he told the Corinthians, “For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (II Corinthians 11:2). Obviously, I have not done this for anyone. But the sense of it is there. If anyone ever confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, if anyone was ever sincerely baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, people like me feel a “divine jealousy” that you belong to Christ, not Jersak. You were “betrothed to Christ” himself. Even though we have sinned beyond counting, in the gospel of the kingdom we are “presented… as a pure virgin to Christ”, meaning we are received as if we had not sinned (just as Yahweh kept telling his people all through the Old Testament!).

   But this is where Paul continues the most heartfelt lament of a preacher of God’s word, “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (II Corinthians 11:3). This is why I showed that Brad Jersak is following the three-prong approach Satan used in the Garden of Eden. It is cunning. It is deceptive. It is aimed to lead people astray from the “sincere and pure devotion to Christ” described in the Scriptures.

   And, lest anyone suggest that this is what Brad Jersak keeps talking about, this nebulous Jesus that exists outside of Scripture somewhere that the BJs have access to, it is immediately after this that Paul states what I have been quoting in all my posts after…

   Okay, I just surprised myself! I was trying to guestimate when I started using the following verse to introduce all my posts afterwards and I thought maybe 50% of the way through, or maybe 33%. So I checked just to be sure and found that it was on DAY 7 that I started using this Scripture! That’s how early on it stood out what the author was doing!

   So, this is what Paul says right after presenting his concern that the people were being led astray from Christ,

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. (II Corinthians 11:4).

   My point is that Brad Jersak is always talking about his “another Jesus” to lead people astray from their “sincere and pure devotion to Christ”. And that is the best way to get professing Christians: offer them a different version of Jesus!

   Well, enough said (I cringe to say that). It really is a choice between whether we hear Jesus calling us from his word to believe his word and his Father, or we hear Brad Jersak as the new authority over what we believe about the sacred Scriptures. I conclude resting in the certainty that I have given every good reason why people should return to Christ and his word from the garden path of Brad Jersak and his kin. And I hope this helps many people to do so.

To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn (Isaiah 8:20).

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near (Revelation 1:1-3).

 

© 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

 

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[1] Wessel, W. W. (1984). Mark. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, p. 619). Zondervan Publishing House.