www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
Part I
By Steven Merten
�Copyright 1990
Note: Jesus words are in red.
Love is greater than life. If God had not given man freedom from the control of His will, there would be no atrocities, persecution, hatred, death and damnation. Murder, the holocaust, abortion, rape, atrocities, and damnation, all flow out from man's free will. We know that God tremendously values man's physical life, spiritual life and well being. What outcome could be so precious for God to attain, for God to grant man free will which allows atrocities, death and damnation to man? LOVE! Love can only be chosen in a situation where there is freedom to choose not to love. Death, damnation and sin are all consequences of God allowing man free will in order to gain man's love. Gaining human love for God is worth putting man's life at risk, otherwise, God would not have allowed free will. Love is far greater than man's, physical or eternal, life.
Some men choose to use free will to commit attrocities on the innocent. What does God will for free willed good people to do when free willed evil people threaten the physical and spiritual lives of the innocent? In the world, good men use deadly weapons to protect the innocent from the wicked. In the spiritual theater, Jesus has given His Church a spiritually deadly weapon to protect the innocent from the wicked. To protect the Israelites, God commanded Moses to be the first to throw stones at those who cause His Church harm. To protect Christianity, Jesus commissioned Peter to be the first to throw spiritual stones at those who cause His Church harm.
Jesus swears to Simon Peter that if Peter holds a man bound to his sins on earth, Jesus will uphold Peter's decision and hold the man bound to his sins in heaven. A man held bound to his sins in heaven by Jesus cannot go to heaven. God gave Moses the authority to take physical life. Jesus gives Peter the authority to take eternal life. The human leader of our Church of today has the Christ given power to spiritually stone a man to eternal death.
Jesus replied, "Blest are you, Simon son of John! No mere man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. I for my part declare to you, you are 'Rock,' and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it. I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Then he strictly ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
A sharp, two-edged sword came out of his mouth, and his face shone like the sun at its brightest. When I caught sight of him I fell down at his feet as though dead, he touched me with his right hand and said: "There is nothing to fear. I am the First and the Last and the One who lives. Once I was dead but now I live-- forever and ever. I hold the keys of death and the nether world."
NAB ISA 11:4
The Rule of ImmanuelHe shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
At the sight of the Lord the disciples rejoiced. "Peace be with you," he said again. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Then he breathed on them and said: "Recieve the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound."
What I say to you is: everyone who grows angry with his brother shall be liable to judgement; any man who uses abusive language toward his brother shall be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and if he holds him in contempt he risks the fires of Gehenna.
"If he ignores them, refer it to the church . If he ignores even the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. I assure you, whatever you declare bound on earth shall be held bound in heaven, and whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be held loosed in heaven."
Jesus solemnly swears by the power of the Holy Spirit that He will build His never-ending Church through St. Peter (MAT 16:13). From St. Peter does flow a never-ending Church through the continuous succession of Popes which emanate from St. Peter. The Catholic Church has had a succession of Popes from the time Christ poured the Holy Spirit of authority on St. Peter till this day when Pope Benedict XVI sits in St. Peter's chair. Jesus willed that their be one man, Peter, in authority over all the rest of His followers. Jesus did not will that there be twelve or ten thousand leaders in equal authority, but one man in unequaled authority over all His followers. Many have wondered away from the Holy Spirit of authority that Jesus establishes in St. Peter.
Jesus's sword of holding sins bound in heaven, wielded by the spoken word of the Pope, is the deadliest form of deterrence on earth. If you stone a man and take his physical life you take maybe thirty, fifty or ninety years of life from him. If you spiritually stone a man, by holding him bound to his sins when he stands before Christ on judgement day, you have taken more life (eternal life) from this one man than the entire combined loss of life from all the wars in human history.
Jesus gives Peter the responsibility of His Bride the Church until He comes again upon His Second Coming. Jesus gives Peter authority to unite Her, the Eucharist to feed Her, baptism to cleanse Her, reconciliation to heal Her and His sword of holding sins bound to protect Her. Jesus has placed His powerful sword on the tongue of St. Peter through Pope Benedict XVI and beyond. The Pope is to wield Christ's sword to protect Christ's Bride, the Church, from evildoers who pull the body of the Church toward apostacy and damnation.
In the time of Noah, God cut-off all mankind by destroying them with a flood.
In the eyes of God the earth was corrupt and full of lawlessness. When God saw how corrupt the earth had become, since all mortals led depraved lives on earth, he said to Noah: "I have decided to put an end to all mortals on earth; the earth is full of lawlessness because of them. So I will destroy them and all life on earth."
I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."In both New Testament and Old Testament, God's people are described as one body. As a surgeon cuts off a cancerous limb to preserve life for the rest of the body so also are we to cut off that portion of the body-of-people who cause the body-of-people physical or spiritual death. Cut-off is God's term for stoning someone or spiritually removing someone from eternal life.
Rather than have the whole body-of-people destroyed, as in Noah's time, now Moses is to cut off that portion of the body-of-people which leads the body-of-Israelites into damnation. Moses is to throw off into death those who bring scandalous conduct to the body-of-Israelite people. Jesus tells Peter to "cut off" and throw into hell that protion of the body which pulls the body toward damnation. A fleshly limb cannot be thrown into hell. Only souls are thrown into hell. If the hand, foot or eye of the body of people is its down fall cut it off and throw it into Gehenna.
Both Jesus and Moses instruct us to cut off that portion of the body of people which causes us harm. Through Jesus and Moses teaching on when to "cut off" we learn when to God wills us to destroy with stones or to destroy with "holding sins bound" to protect the innocent.
The LORD said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites: Anyone, whether an Israelite or an alien residing in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech shall be put to death. Let his fellow citizens stone him. I myself will turn against such a man and cut him off from the body of his people: for in giving his offspring to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name."
Jesus is speaking.
If your right eye is your trouble, gouge it out and throw it away! Better you lose part of your body than to have it all cast into Gehenna. Again if your right hand is your trouble, cut it off and throw it away! Better to lose part of your body than to have it all cast into Gehenna."
"But anyone who sins defiantly, whether he be a native or and alien, insults the LORD, and shall be cut off from among his people. Since he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, he must be cut off. He has only himself to blame."The Sabbath-breaker. While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was discovered gathering wood on the sabbath day. Those who caught him at it brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly. But they kept him in custody, for there was no clear decision as to what should be done with him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "This man shall be put to death; let the whole community stone him outside the camp." So the whole community led him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD had commanded Moses.
Jesus is speaking.
"Whoever welcomes one such child for my sake welcomes me. On the other hand, it would be better for anyone who leads astray one of these little ones who believes in me, to be drown by a millstone around his neck, in the depths of the sea. What terrible things will come on the world through scandal! It is inevitable that scandal should occur. Nonetheless, woe to that man through whom scandal comes! If your hand or foot is your undoing, cut it off and throw it from you! Better to enter life maimed or crippled than be thrown with two hands or feet into endless fire. If your eye is your downfall, gouge it out and cast it from you! Better to enter life with one eye than be thrown with both into fiery Gehenna.NAB EXO 21:23
"But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,... "
"Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people .'"
For what hope has the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?
For when corpses had already fallen one on another in heaps, he stood in the midst and checked his anger, and cut off the way to the living.
Son of man, when a land sins against me by breaking faith, I stretch out my hand against it and break its staff of bread, I let famine loose upon it and cut off form it both man and beast; and even if these three men were in it, Noah, Daniel, and Job, they could only save themselves by their virtue, says the LORD God.
| GEN 9:11 | GEN 17:14 | EXO 4:25* | EXO 12:15 | EXO 12:19 | EXO 30:33 |
| EXO 30:38 | EXO 31:14 | LEV 7:20 | LEV 7:21 | LEV 7:25 | LEV 7:27 |
| LEV 17:4 | LEV 17:9 | LEV 17:10 | LEV 18:29 | LEV 19:8 | LEV 20:5 |
| LEV 20:6 | LEV 20:17 | LEV 20:18 | LEV 22:3 | LEV 23:29 | NUM 4:18 |
| NUM 9:13 | NUM 15:30 | NUM 15:31 | NUM 19:13 | NUM 19:20* | JOS 3:13 |
| JOS 4:7 | JDG 21:6 | 1SA 20:15 | 2SA 14:16 | 1KI 9:7 | 1KI 14:10* |
| 1KI 14:14 | 1KI 21:21 | 1CH 17:8* | JOB 24:24 | JOB 27:8 | PSA 37:34 |
| PSA 37:38 | PSA 101:8* | PSA 109:13 | ISA 9:14* | ISA 11:13 | ISA 14:22 |
| ISA 18:5 | ISA 48:19 | ISA 53:8 | JER 9:21 | JER 48:25 | JER 50:16 |
| JER 51:13 | LAM 2:3* | LAM 3:54 | EZE 14:13 | EZE 21:4 | EZE 25:16 |
| EZE 30:15 | EZE 35:7 | EZE 37:11 | DAN 9:26 | NAH 1:12* | ZEP 1:3 |
| ZEP 1:4 | WIS 18:23 | SIR 40:17 |
KARET is the Jewish term for spiritually "cutting off" a person from the body of people. The Jews do not see themselves as having the power to KARET. The Jews still do have the Mosaic command to stone. The Pope having the Christ given power to hold sins bound, casting a person into eternal damnation, certainly correlates with the Jewish term KARET.
God's Ten Commandments and free will are designed to give man an avenue to love God. God's Ten Commandments are also designed to protect mankind's lives, marriages, property, respect for parenthood, and truth from the destructive side of free will. If you harm My people, you will be destroyed, is the basic principal as to how God's commandments love and protect mankind.
Many times Jesus tells of those who He will not forgive. Moses has a forgiving heart. We study Moses, the Father and Jesus's mercy, forgiveness and pardoning in Part II of this chapter.
In God's image man will defend society both physically and spiritually. God commanding man to stone those who lead mankind into damnation is God's protection of society. Man is not worthy to make the decision to stone, forgive sins, consecrate the Eucharist, Baptize or hold sins bound. It is by the will of God that Christ's Priests are commissioned to bestow these God given gifts, in God's image, for the benefit of the body of people. In God's image we are, not only free, but commanded by the will of God to use physical and spiritual lethal force to defend ourselves from those who cause us physical or spiritual harm.
"If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; For in the image of God has man been made."God's laws to love and protect His people and America's laws to love and protect her people are based on the same basic principal. If you harm my people, you will be destroyed. God's Mosaic stoning, God's ten commandments, American capital punishment, Christ's law on "holding sins bound", Karet, cutting off from the body of people, Anathema, are all designed to love and protect mankind by destroying those who cause mankind harm.
Please visit: Anathema: Christian Church Punishments of Spiritual Death
Because of free will, God does not physically prevent evil from happening. America does not arrest people before they commit a crime. The only thing protecting the lives, property and well being of people is the deterrent effect of punishment from God or punishment from man upon those who do us harm.
Both the Mosaic Sanhedrin and the leadership of Christianity are to use good judgement as to when and when not to throw physical or spiritual stones. Not all guilty Israelites were stoned. Covetous, adulterous, murderous, holy bread eater, King David was allowed to live because he repented (2SA 13:13), while defiant bishop Korah was struck down and cast into hell (NUM 16:1-35)(JUD 5-11). Church leaders are to follow the concept of Jesus and Moses when they look at the Father and Jesus' will on throwing physical or spiritual stones.
Man has free will and he can manipulate God's laws on stoning. Evil Church leaders tried to manipulate God's law and stone an adulterous woman for the purpose of finding a way to unjustly kill Jesus and Jesus stopped them (John 8). Authorized Mosaic Church leaders put Jesus to death claiming to be following God's Law on stoning. Let us study scriptures to understand the Father and Jesus' will on when humans should and should not use deadly force.
Would God and Moses have stoned Jesus?
On a sabbath day he was teaching in one of the synagogues. There was a woman there who for eighteen years had been possessed by a spirit which drained her strength. She was badly stooped--quite incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said, "Woman, you are free of your infirmity." He laid his hand on her, and immediately she stood up straight and began thanking God.The chief of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus should have healed on the sabbath, said to the congregation, "There are six days for working. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath."
The Lord said in reply, "O you hypocrites! Which of you does not let his ox or ass out of the stall on the sabbath to water it? Should not this daughter of Abraham here who has been in the bondage of Satan for eighteen years have been released from her shackles on the sabbath?" (JOH 5:8)
The LORD said to Moses, "You must also tell the Israelites: Take care to keep my sabbaths, for that is to be the token between you and me throughout the generations, to show that it is I, the LORD, who make you holy. Therefore, you must keep the sabbath as something sacred. Whoever desecrated it shall be put to death. If anyone does work on that day, he must be rooted out of his people.
It was because Jesus did things such as this on the sabbath that they began to persecute him, But he had an answer for them: "My Father is at work until now, and I am at work as well." The reason why the Jews were even more determined to kill him was that he not only was breaking the sabbath but, worse still, was speaking of God as his own Father, thereby making himself God's equal.
The high priest rose to his feet before the court and began to interrogate Jesus: "Have you no answer to what these men testify against you?" But Jesus remained silent; he made no reply. Once again the high priest interrogated him: "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" Then Jesus answered: "I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven." At that the high priest tore his robes and said: "What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What is your verdict?" They all concurred in the verdict "guilty", with its sentence of death.
Tell the Israelites: Anyone who curses his God shall bear the penalty of his sin: whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall be put to death. The whole community shall stone him: alien and native alike must be put to death for blaspheming the LORD's name.
"We have our law," the Jews responded, and according to that law he must die because he made himself God's Son."
Would God and Moses have stoned King David?
At this the Pharisees protested: "Look! Why do they do a thing not permitted on the sabbath?" He said to them: "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his men were hungry? How he entered God's house in the days of Abiathar the high priest and ate the holy bread which only priests were permitted to eat? He even gave it to his men."(1SA21)
"They shall keep my charge and not do wrong in this matter; else they will die for their profanation. I am the LORD who have consecrated them. "Neither a lay person nor a priest's tenant or hired servant may eat of any sacred offering."
Would God and Moses have stoned the adulterous woman?
"Teacher," they said to him, "this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses ordered such women to be stoned. What do you have to say about the case?" (They were posing this question to trap him, so that they could have something to accuse him of.) Jesus bent down and started tracing on the ground with his finger. When they persisted in their questioning, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her." A second time he bent down and wrote on the ground. Then the audience drifted away one by one, beginning with the elders. This left him alone with the woman, who continued to stand there before him. Jesus finally straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where did they all disappear to? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she answered. Jesus said, "Nor do I condemn you. You may go. But from now on, avoid this sin."
"Anyone who curses his father or mother shall be put to death; since he has cursed his father or mother, he has forfeited his life. If a man commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.The Pharisees, Chief Priests and Scribes manipulated God's commandments on stoning to assassinate their political enemy Jesus. Religious lawyers studied every minute detail of God's Mosaic law on stoning to find something to kill Jesus with.
The sinner turns aside reproof and distorts the law to suit his purpose.
After he had left this gathering, the Scribes and Pharisees began to manifest fierce hostility to him and make him speak on a multitude of questions, setting traps to catch him in his speech.
"Come," they said, "let us contrive a plot against Jeremiah. It will not mean the loss of instruction form the priests, nor of console for the wise, nor messages from prophets. And so, let us destroy him by his own tongue; let us carefully note his every word."
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they assembled in a body; and one of them, a lawyer, in an attempt to trip him up, asked him, "Teacher, which of the commandments of the law is the greatest?"
The chief priests, with the whole Sanhedrin, were busy trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death.
The feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread were to be observed in two days time, and therefore the chief priests and scribes began to look for a way to arrest him by some trick and kill him.
At that time the chief priests and elders of the people were assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas. They plotted to arrest Jesus by some trick and kill him;Killing Jesus, David or the adulterous woman is not a fulfilment the Mosaic law. When Jesus stopped the Scribes and Pharisees from stoning the woman in no way was he stopping a fulfillment of the Mosaic law. The Pharisees were trying to manipulate the law to murder her and Jesus.
The Jewish Sanhedrin was put in place by God through Moses to make judgements over men in accordance to God's laws on stoning. God has a law commanding His Church authorities to stone those who work on the sabbath. If you focus only on the details of God's word rather than on the broad concept of God's word, as God intended, then Jesus appears to have broken the sabbath day of rest. God has a law to stone those who blaspheme God. When God's authorized Church leaders put Jesus on trial for blaspheme, Jesus did not bring forth evidence that He was God's Son as demanded by God's Church authorities. God's Church court authorities condemned Jesus to death in accordance to the correct details, but grossly opposed the correct concept of God's law on stoning. Killing Jesus was an evil manipulation of God's laws on stoning. Jewish leaders did not make an honest judgement.
Jesus knew God's law and He had the wisdom to apply it. The Pharisees came to kill the adulterous woman according to the exact details of God's law. Jesus knew that it was hatred in their hearts and not defense of morality that they wished to stone her. Jesus stood opposed to the exact details of God's Mosaic law to uphold the exact concept and purpose of God's Mosaic law. Jesus never altered God's Mosaic law. Jesus simply followed the concept of God's law and He did not allow evil men to manipulate the details of God's law.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
"Moses gave you circumcision (though it did not originate with Moses but with the patriarchs). And so, even on a sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man can be circumcised on the sabbath to prevent a violation of Mosaic law, how is it you are angry with me for curing a whole man on the sabbath? Stop judging by appearances and make an honest judgement.
He went on to say: "You have made a fine art of setting aside God's commandment in the interests of keeping your traditions! For example, Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and in another place, 'Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.' Yet you declare, If a person says to his father or mother, Any support you might have had from me is korban' (that is, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. That is the way you nullify God's word in favor of the traditions you have handed on."
NAB EXO 21:17
"Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death."
Anathema: Church Punishments of Spiritual Death
